MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle on Friday morning pushed a debunked narrative about First Daughter Ivanka Trump.
Ruhle claimed that President Donald Trump accepted a $100 million donation from Saudi Arabia for his daughter Ivanka's proposed Women Entrepreneurs Fund.
"The president saying, 'The Germans are bad, very bad.' Now he's speaking about trade, but when you look at all this, all of things the president has said in the last week, do you wonder how informed he is?" Ruhle asked.
"The fact that he can even use the word 'bad, very bad' as it relates to Germany, yet accepting $100 million from the Saudis for Ivanka's women in entrepreneurship fund, when Saudi Arabia is a country with massive human rights violations," Ruhle continued. "And its treatment of women can't possibly be considered humane compared to Western beliefs."
The $100 million donation from Saudi Arabia to the Women Entrepreneurs Fund was accurately reported in the Wall Street Journal but shared misleadingly on social media. Reporters alluded to the donation as a form of bribery, claiming President Trump was a hypocrite because he criticized Hillary Clinton throughout his campaign for the Clinton Foundation accepting foreign donations.
Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca Ballhaus tweeted out a link to the story but described it misleadingly. The tweet soon went viral.
Saudi Arabia and UAE pledge $100 million to Ivanka's Women Entrepreneurs Fund, per @carolelee: https://t.co/dZYzPJ5GOd
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) May 21, 2017
Trump pilloried Clinton for such donations to the Clinton Foundation on the campaign trail https://t.co/rEIX4I2EHt
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) May 21, 2017
Ballhaus inaccurately said the fund is Ivanka's. The first daughter and assistant to the president suggested the idea for the fund, but the fund is managed by the World Bank. Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold pointed out the important distinction.
"Ivanka Trump helped inspire an idea under consideration at the World Bank—an international fund to invest in women-owned businesses—but the first daughter would have no role in raising money for such a fund or deciding where its money would be spent, a Trump administration official said Wednesday," Fahrenthold reported.
This fact did not stop others from assuming that the fund was controlled by Ivanka Trump.
This is virtually identical to what Trump and others in GOP criticized Clinton Foundation for. https://t.co/AcwddFeuYW
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) May 21, 2017
Same day they got that arms deal, the Saudis plopped $100mil into Ivanka's charity. Now, will the GOP cry foul like they did with Hillary?
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 21, 2017
Wall Street Journal editorial writer Sohrab Ahmari tried to correct the record.
https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/866407732903129088
Ruhle, who has previously reported fake news as fact, incorrectly claimed that the Women Entrepreneurship Fund is controlled by the first daughter, and that President Trump is the one who accepted the donation.
The World Bank's Women Entrepreneurship Fund will help empower women entrepreneurs and small business owners around the world.