- The Washington Times - Friday, June 2, 2017

Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to President Trump, said Friday that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner did not attend the announcement of the Paris climate agreement because of a Jewish holiday.

“Yesterday was a Jewish holiday, as I understand — so I don’t want to read anything into how anyone is spending their time or where they are or not, however, that’s my whole point,” Ms. Conway said on Fox News.

“This is a president who is unafraid to listen to many ideas across the spectrum, and this was a great example of that. In the end, he made the decision based on the facts and figures that he repeated yesterday,” she said.

Ms. Conway said the president wanted to renegotiate a better deal that made more advances to enforce these regulations without burdening the U.S. worker, and explained that even environmentalists said the deal did not make great advancements to protect the environment.

“This was a very poorly negotiated, bad deal, from the beginning. I would point out to you that when it was first negotiated, many of the environmentalists went crazy. They said that this will have a statistically insignificant impact in a positive way on carbon emissions, and it let China and India off without having to compel their behavior in such a dramatic way,” she said.

Ms. Conway also said the decision shows Mr. Trump is focused on domestic issues, which include health care and tax reform, both of which he plans to have passed this year.

“This is important because it impacts every day lives. Tax reform, health care reform, the president feels very confident that those can get done this year. He works with [Majority] Leader MccConnell in the Senate very closely. You’ve got Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary Ross, Director Cohn saying tax reform can happen this year,” she said.

• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.

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