© Chip Somodevilla
US President Donald Trump's daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, said on Tuesday that
media misinterpreted comments about her involvement in the government's decision to launch airstrikes on Syrian airfield in Homs. "That would be a flawed interpretation," Trump stated in Berlin, Germany referring to a
New York Times publication on how the decision was made.
On April 11, the president's son Eric Trump revealed that his sister Ivanka, who has recently agreed to take an unpaid job as a White House adviser, influenced the order to take a military action on Syria. The White House also confirmed that Ivanka weighed in the decision. However, Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not specify the extend of her participation.
The United States launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian government airbase on April 6. Trump assured that the launch was conducted in response to a chemical attack on civilians in Idlib that killed more than 80 people, including children.
Comment: More from Politico:
Eric Trump, who alongside his brother, Donald Trump Jr., runs the Trump Organization, told The Daily Telegraph he was confident that his sister used her influence with the president to compel him to respond to the Syrian regime's chemical weapons attack on civilians. "Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence. I'm sure she said: 'Listen, this is horrible stuff,'" Eric Trump said during the interview.
"That would be a flawed interpretation," Ivanka Trump told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday, pointing to a New York Times report detailing, in the first daughter's words, "how the decision process was managed."
"It was informed at the highest levels of military and state," the unpaid White House adviser and special assistant to the president continued. "I, of course, shared my perspective and opinion. It aligned with his own."
Eric Trump said he sensed his father was "deeply affected by those images of the children," and Ivanka Trump shared a similar sentiment on Tuesday, telling reporters, "It would be very hard as a human being to see the images that we saw and not to be very shaken to the core. "
"That said ... you can't make decisions based on emotion alone," she added. "His decision was incredibly well informed and advised. I'm proud of the action he took, how decisive it was."
'Decisive' doesn't necessarily mean a decision is well-informed or advised. 'Decisive' should only come after all the facts are in and the path forward is defendable as the correct one. In this instance, emotion overrode waiting for all means of verification, negated any other strategic response. It has cost the president in home support and on the global stage. Perhaps family members should remain so.
Comment: More from Politico: 'Decisive' doesn't necessarily mean a decision is well-informed or advised. 'Decisive' should only come after all the facts are in and the path forward is defendable as the correct one. In this instance, emotion overrode waiting for all means of verification, negated any other strategic response. It has cost the president in home support and on the global stage. Perhaps family members should remain so.