Top Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway used a Fox News appearance on Thursday morning to encourage people to buy items from Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line, just one day after the President slammed Nordstrom on Twitter for dropping it.
“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would tell you,” she said. “I hate shopping, I will go get some myself today.”
Here is @KellyannePolls, the counselor to @POTUS, telling people to buy the president’s daughter’s merchandise.
“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff.” pic.twitter.com/MP1gHRHs6W
— Tom Namako (@TomNamako) February 9, 2017
“This is just a wonderful line,” Conway continued. “I own some of it. I fully—I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody, you can find it online.”
Conway said that she finds it troubling that executives are dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line when she feels the President’s daughter is an icon for women’s empowerment and that executives, like those at Nordstrom, are using Ivanka Trump to get to her father.
“Using her, who has been a champion for women empowerment, of women in the workplace, to get to him. I think people can see right through that.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer took a similar tone Wednesday when asked about the tweet, saying that the company dropping the fashion line was a “direct attack” on the President and his policies.
Nordstrom has said that the move to drop the line was not political, but was due to declining sales.
Ivanka Trump has said she stepped away from her line for now in order to get her children settled to their new home in Washington, D.C.
The comment could create yet another sticky ethical situation because Conway is on the White House payroll. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), ranking member on the House Ethics Committee, tweeted about Conway’s “commercial,” suggesting the Office of Government Ethics could be looking into it.
Our taxes shouldn't pay for commercials for Trump family business coming straight out of the White House!
Busy morning at @OfficeGovEthics https://t.co/6Cbsk9CLeT— Rep. Ted Deutch (@RepTedDeutch) February 9, 2017
I no longer recognize the country we live in.
I made a purchase from Nordstrom instead. If we’re going to vote again with our dollars, I may as well make a statement.
Well, in one sense the commercial is free. In another sense, we’re all paying for it. For every venal second of it.
I wonder, if that’s a good idea ?