WTF Is The Ivanka Trump Goya Beans Endorsement About?

Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images.

It’s been quite a week for Ivanka Trump. Hot on the heels of her “Find Something New” campaign, which encourages the 44 million-plus Americans who are out of work due to the global pandemic to just, you know, switch fields in order to find new employment, the president’s daughter — and senior advisor — graced the internet with an ill-advised tweet almost guaranteed to become the internet's new favourite meme. (Though, maybe that was the whole point? More on that in a minute.)

On Tuesday night, Trump tweeted a photo of herself holding a can of Goya brand black beans. Looking just like a model on The Price Is Right (the can cosplaying as the Ultimate Prize), Trump captioned the tweet with Goya Foods' official tagline: “If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” and its Spanish translation, “Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno.”

AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT

It's no mystery why Ivanka Trump — who has spoken on-record about the troubles of growing up super-rich — is now shilling for canned beans. Last week, Goya CEO Robert Unanue made an appearance at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden where he praised President Trump, saying that the country is “truly blessed” to have a leader like him and that Trump reminds him of his grandfather, a Spanish immigrant who founded Goya in 1936. The backlash against the otherwise-beloved brand was swift, including from within Latinx-American communities, with the hashtags #Goyaway and #BoycottGoya trending on Twitter.

But, even if Trump's tweet was only intended to show support for a brand that supports her father, as a result she is looking at a potential federal ethics investigation, since government officials are not supposed to endorse brands. The rules from the Department of Justice state that "an employee's position or title should not be used to coerce; to endorse any product, service or enterprise; or to give the appearance of governmental sanction.”

Beyond the ethical ickiness, Trump's tweet was troubling in that it seems like she might have deployed it as a distraction from yet another problem: her father’s incoherent Rose Garden press conference from earlier that same evening, during which the New York Times notes that the president spoke for 63 minutes and spent just six of those minutes answering questions from reporters.

AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT

Or, you know, maybe the answer is just as simple as Ivanka Trump being as big of a raging narcissist as her father, and so she tweeted this photo with the hopes of becoming a meme? If so, she couldn't have planned it any better. The image she used is so easy to photoshop that there's already a blank template available for the easiest possible meme-making, and her caption is so easy to mock that it's leading to some truly great retweets. (Our current favorite is this brilliant reference to Moira Rose's iconic fruit wine commercial from Schitt's Creek.)

“Hi! I'm Moira Rose, and if you like fruit wine as much as I do, then you'll appreciate the craftsmanship and quality of a local vintner who brings the muskmelon goodness to his oak Chardonnay and the dazzling peach crabapple to his Riesling Rioja.“ https://t.co/5sHsKyZ3dz
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 15, 2020

But not everyone thinks it’s amusing. “Had it with anyone who EVER defends this woman or puts her as the ‘sane’ one in this family,” tweeted Chrissy Teigen. “What a repulsive trolling of the people.”

I'm so fucking sick of these people and their tireless, shameless dedication to every cheesy grievance. I hate that they're running the country, and embarrassed at how appropriate it is that they are at this moment in time. Sorry I forgot to do a joke! https://t.co/nmveZykus0
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) July 15, 2020

And, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not mince words in her response. She responded in Spanish, with the words, “If it’s Trump, it has to be corrupt.”