Ivanka Trump Slammed for Posing With a Can of Goya Beans in Strange, Possibly Illegal Photo

One political norm the Trump family has repeatedly chucked out of the window is the idea that powerful government officials should not use their influence to endorse specific products or appear in ads. Trump still hangs on to private business interests years into his presidency, and recently, Ivanka went viral for hawking a can of beans.

No, that's not some weird euphemism for something. After the CEO of Goya came out as a Trump supporter and some called for the boycott of Goya products, Ivanka posed in a picture holding a can of Goya black beans. She posted to the picture to Twitter with the caption, "If it's Goya, it has to be good," in both English and Spanish, which is the most advertise-y advertising language I've ever heard in my life.

You can't argue that that photo combined with that caption is not endorsing Goya beans. I mean...come on. And lots and lots of people immediately recognized how unethical and probably illegal this was. 

"I'm so old I remember when a White House staffer violating the ethics rule against promoting private companies would be a big deal," posted Vox reporter Aaron Rupar. In any other presidency, this would be a major news item. 

It wasn't just the fact of her endorsement but the transparency that caught people's attention. It clearly wasn't an accident that she endorsed Goya products. She's literally standing there with her hand under the can of beans like she's in an actual commercial.

If you believe it, this was the second thing Ivanka got slammed for that day. Earlier, she took to Twitter to unveil the Trump administration's "Find Something New" initiative, which, no joke, encourages the more than 40 million out-of-work Americans who lost their jobs because of the pandemic to simply "find something new."

Elite Daily reports that the program's ad campaign "touts the benefits of vocational training as an alternative to a two-year or four-year college education." The website links to career self-assessment tests and lists of open jobs. 

The "Find Something New" campaign was immediately slammed for its poor timing. Unprecedented numbers of Americans have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and instead of the government stepping up to help its people and make sure they aren't evicted or left destitute, they're simply telling people to "find something new" even when so many industries are actively laying off people en masse.

"Calling on Americans to find new jobs with the highest unemployment since the Depression is awesome," writes author Paul Krugman. "Making Ivanka Trump the face of a campaign urging self-reliance is simply surreal."

"Yeah cause the 80+ jobs I've applied for since getting laid off in May weren't 'new' enough, b---h I'm trying, I don't need an ad campaign to remind me to #FindSomethingNew," another Twitter user wrote. The unemployment problem isn't a result of people not considering different options for work. It's a result of those options not existing. 

Ivanka's ability to present exactly the opposite of what would be considered appropriate or helpful is almost impressive at this point. She's proven herself to be so wildly out of touch with regular people that no one even believed that she actually owned a can of Goya black beans.