Ivanka Trump expressed her support for the city of Baltimore Tuesday but did not explicitly condemn her father’s racially-charged inflammatory tweets aimed at the city.
“In spring 2017, after visiting the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Greater Baltimore Urban League, I donated proceeds from my book to fund a @NatUrbanLeague Women’s Initiative, incubated in Baltimore, to assist women in starting and growing successful businesses,” she tweeted.
“I encourage everyone to advance smart policy and/or support organizations that uplift the great people of ‘Charm City,’ ” she added.
Over the weekend, President DonaldTrump stoked racial tension, attacking Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings and his Baltimore district, claiming that “no human being” would want to live in Cummings’ “disgusting, rat and rodent infested” district. He has since doubled down on the attacks.
A White House official did not respond to CNN’s inquiry, which came hours before her tweets, on whether Ivanka Trump had advised her father on the matter.
The President’s senior adviser and eldest daughter visited Baltimore in February 2017 for a roundtable with local business owners, National Urban League president and CEO Mark Morial, then-aide Dina Powell, and then-Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon. $100,000 of the proceeds from her book, “Women Who Work,” released that May, went to the National Urban League via the Ivanka M. Trump Charitable Fund.
Following that February 2017 discussion with small business owners and entrepreneurs, Trump repeatedly talked about one panelist, Lisa Phillips, a once-homeless woman who launched a gift basket business in Baltimore and now mentors other entrepreneurs. Phillips’ story, Trump said during a panel discussion in May 2017, “really resonated with me very personally.”
Phillips, who visited the White House and met with the President that year, tweeted her support on Monday for Cummings.
“Simply the best @RepCummings. I have a college graduate because of Congressmen Cummings. His office provided parents with a packet of resources. She was fully funded and graduated,” she tweeted alongside a photo of herself with Cummings, captioned, “My hero.”
The National Urban League also tweeted support for Cummings, as well as the Rev. Al Sharpton, whom Trump also attacked.
“Pres. #Trump’s recent comments are deeply troubling and divisive at a time when our country needs to unite and move forward in the fight for #equality and #equity. We will continue the work regardless,” the organization’s official account said Monday.
