News

Ivanka Wished Her Husband A Happy Birthday & Twitter's Being Super Mean About It

by Monica Hunter-Hart
Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images

On Wednesday, First Daughter Ivanka Trump celebrated Jared Kushner's birthday on Twitter by posting an old photo of her with Jared at Mar-a-Lago the last time that she was pregnant. Her post was clearly meant to be a personal and celebratory note to her husband, but Twitter users did not take well to the message.

"Happy birthday, Jared!" Ivanka wrote. "Thank you for being the most amazing father, husband, and best friend I could have dreamed of. Here's to you!" In the past, she's often celebrated his birthday with lavish socialite parties.

Ivanka and Kushner have both been the subject of immense criticism for their activities in the White House. Kushner has come under fire for his work trying to negotiate a peace settlement between Palestine and Israel, which led to the Trump administration naming Jerusalem as Israel's capital in a move that many said was unfair to Palestine.

Meanwhile, Ivanka has been receiving a lot of negative press coverage this week for her response to Oprah's "Me Too" speech at the Golden Globes. After she praised Oprah and the Times Up movement on Twitter, many people condemned her response as hypocritical. She continues to support her father, who has been accused of sexual assault himself; notably, President Trump also wholeheartedly endorsed Roy Moore for Senate in Alabama, who was accused of sexually assaulting minors (both men have denied the majority of the allegations).

Given this context, Twitter was not ready to join in Ivanka's celebration. Here are some of the many reactions to her birthday post.

Celebrating For Different Reasons

Yep, here's to Jared Kushner's boundless privilege.

Offering Suggestions

When Ivanka tries to post apolitical messages on Twitter, it usually doesn't work out well for her. It's impossible to view her words outside of the context of our current political moment — in which she has a significant amount of power, as one of Trump's senior advisers — and people won't let her forget that.

Gift Speculation

In his new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Michael Wolff quotes Steve Bannon as saying that Kushner has laundered money.

Bannon reportedly believes that Robert Mueller's investigation will turn out an indictment for Kushner based on this, and even said, "Their path to f**ing Trump goes right through ... Jared Kushner."

Brutal

The Golden Globes incident isn't the first time that people have chastised Ivanka for hypocrisy. She often tries to distance herself from her father's actions even though she is complicit in them as one of his senior advisors. Ivanka is a former Democratic donor and often offers supportive words for certain feminist issues — in particular, the need for legislation to help working mothers.

Still, she has not managed to further any of these causes in a significant way during her time in the White House. POLITICO reports that she doesn't like that people expect her to be able to change the president's mind on policy issues and that she wants people to think that she has only limited influence over him.

Jail Talk

It's unclear how long Mueller's investigation will last or whether or not it will end in an indictment of Jared Kushner. However, some people believe that the investigation could be coming to a close because Mueller will reportedly try to interview the president himself soon.

Reading Between the Lines

Fire and Fury also alleges that Bannon called the June 2016 meeting between Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and Russians "treasonous."

Just Some Classic Trolling

Just some standard "you've-got-the-wrong-person" humor.

It might seem cruel to drag a couple for celebrating a birthday, but Ivanka and Jared must have known that they were exposing themselves to a huge amount of public wrath when they signed on to join the Trump administration.