Fact check: Ivanka Trump didn't twist JFK's iconic 1961 speech to say 'ask what we can do for my dad'
People might regard Ivanka Trump as a complete daddy girl, but it does not mean that every meme circulating on social media about her comments on President Donald Trump is true.
One such meme began circulating after people started criticizing the POTUS for his poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic, not to mention, giving it seemingly racists names like 'Chinese Virus,' 'Wuhan Virus' and 'Kung-Flu.' According to the meme, the first daughter defended her father by saying: “Liberals who criticize my dad for exposing them to a mild Chinese virus should read about the girl in India who transported her dad 750 miles on her bicycle. Like her, let’s not ask what my dad can do for us, let’s ask what we can do for my dad."
The latter part of her speech seemed to be a play on former President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1961 inaugural address, which said, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." However, as it turns out, Ivanka never twisted his words and had her own take on it. The phrase, in fact, was born from a Tucker Carlson parody account, which was later circulated as Ivanka's own words.
The meme is not entirely false, however, as the mother-of-one did tweet on May 22, 2020, about a girl in India who cycled her wounded father about 750 miles due to the unavailability of any other modes of transportation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "15 yr old Jyoti Kumari, carried her wounded father to their home village on the back of her bicycle covering +1,200 km over 7 days. This beautiful feat of endurance & love has captured the imagination of the Indian people and the cycling federation!" she posted along with the link to an article that had the picture of the father-daughter duo.
But her tweet did not go down well with many people who contended she had missed the point of the anecdote. It is unclear if Ivanka even went through the whole story behind Kumari giving her father a ride on the back of her bicycle. Apparently, her father had lost his rickshaw job after suffering an injury and was running out of food and money where he used to work in northern India. As a result, Kumari took it upon herself to get herself and her dad to their family village. It took her seven laborious days to pedal her way to the destination during which they slept rough and survived on handouts.
The former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in India, Omar Abdullah, as well as other human rights advocates, called out the first daughter, following her tweet, saying that she missed the point of the story. “Her poverty & desperation are being glorified as if Jyoti cycled 1,200 KM for the thrill of it,” he wrote on Twitter. “Government failed her, that’s hardly something to trumpet as an achievement.”
“This is not a feat of excellence,” opposition member of parliament Kanti Chidambaram tweeted. “It’s a feat fuelled by desperation caused due to the callous attitude of the government.”