Back in March, Donald Trump Jr. and Vanessa Trump filed for divorce, confirming rumors that were circulating at that time.
Now, Don Jr. is dating Kimberly Guilfoyle. Yes, the Fox News host. Some have responded by allegedly demanding that the network fire her over a perceived conflict of interests.
And who, of all people, has stepped up to defend Guilfoyle? Vanessa Trump. Take a look:
There were apparently some people who think that it is improper for a journalist — or close enough — like Kimberly Guilfoyle to be dating the President’s son.
So some of these same individuals called for her to be fired from Fox News, citing that they believed that there may be a conflict of interests.
Vanessa Trump, of all people, is springing to Guilfoyle’s defense.
On Thursday, she took to Twitter to defend her ex’s girlfriend.
“The lengths people will go to attack a woman simply because she’s dating Don,” Vanessa tweeted.
Vanessa’s tweet continues: “We’ve been separated for over 9 months and respect each other’s decisions & privacy.”
They’re doing a better job of finding that balance than plenty of couples, celebrity and otherwise.
“We’ll focus on raising our great kids,” Vanessa writes.
Parents should always make their children their first priority, of course.
Finally, Vanessa concludes: “Would be nice if the press did the same rather than obsess over our [private] lives!”
Well, the private life of children is one thing. Children are blameless, no matter who their parents or grandparents might be.
The private life of the President’s adult son — when that son goes out and is seen as a surrogate for his father in international matters — is very much the public’s business.
But we certainly agree that Don Jr. dating Guilfoyle should not make the latter a target.
To Vanessa Trump’s further credit, she also did not repeat Don Jr.’s bizarre political rhetoric.
Sometimes, certain political factions try to parrot the other’s words. Some white men, like Don Jr. and others, are uncomfortable with phrases like “white privilege” and “male privelege.”
As a result, they try to insult their political opponents by following any word with “privilege,” regardless of context, in the hopes that it sticks.
It is, perhaps, a sad sign of how juvenile political discourse has become that the President’s own son’s tweets read this way so often.
But his side of the political aisle isn’t the only group to publish cringeworthy messages.
On Wednesday, Don Jr. called out a New York Daily News article that appeared to make a racist remark about Guilfoyle’s Colombian heritage.
Donald Trump Jr. cited a Breitbart headline: “Daily News Writer Tells Puerto Rican Kimberly Guilfoyle to ‘Pick Grapes."”
The line about how Guilfoyle was better off picking grapes than men, he believes, may have been racially insensitive or even a direct attack on Guilfoyle’s heritage.
The New York Daily News article was then updated to lack the line about grapes, and the author apologized on Twitter.
“Absolutely no idea that Kimberly Guilfoyle is half Puerto Rican,” Linda Stasi tweets. “And my column was in no way meant as a slur.”
“Nonetheless I will change that reference online,” she promises. “I’m just surprised anyone would have assumed such a stereotype b/c someone is half-Latina.”
(Full disclosure, it had never occurred to me that there was any stereotypical association there, either, but it’s good to listen when someone tells you that you’re being racially insensitive.
“So sorry for misunderstanding,” Lisa concludes.
Now … past all of the political discussions, does Kimberly Guilfoyle dating Don Jr. actually represent a conflict of interests?
On the one hand, no, because neither has direct power over the other and this relationship is not secret.
Anyone listening to Guilfoyle discuss Don Jr. and his family knows that she is dating him. Neither is, say, the other’s judge. Viewers are free to take her words with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, also no, because no reasonable person watches Fox News with the expectation that their coverage of the Trump family will in any way take a neutral tone.
Fox News has essentially taken to functioning as state-run media under the Trump Administration, just as fervently as it did under the Bush Administration.
Don Jr.’s sex life couldn’t make Fox News somehow more favorable to Trump. They’re already maxed out.
If you want to make fun of Kimberly Guilfoyle, don’t target her dating life. Target essentially everything that she’s ever said at her current job.
