Lara Trump sparks controversy with photo of puppy shelter cages: 'Think about the kids separated from their families!'

Lara Trump’s Instagram post about puppies turned political when she asked fans to show sympathy for shelter dogs housed in cages, a situation many compared to the immigration crisis.

On Wednesday, the 35-year-old Trump campaign official shared a photo featuring a shelter dog cage, originally posted by Rescue Dogs Rock NYC, a not-for-profit animal rescue organization. “Imagine if this was your view,” she wrote. “Day in and day out people would come by and stand in front of your cage and stare at you. They would tell you to sshhh if you barked. They would laugh if you ran around frantically. Some would cry if you looked sad. Imagine people reading the info on your cage and just moving on. Imagine being on display like furniture in a storefront. Can you imagine?”

Trump urged followers to spend time with the dogs, who often feel scared and vulnerable. “Shelter dogs likely had families at one time,” she concluded. “Each of them has had their lives turned upside down through no fault of their own. Imagine being let down by humans over and over. Put yourself in their place. Try to imagine.”

The photo angered people who compared the dogs’ shelter conditions to those of immigrants and their children held in cagelike conditions as a result of President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. The angry comments flooded in.

“Think about the kids separated from their families?!?!” one incredulous person wrote. “Lara….. What about the hundreds of thousands incarcerated humans here in the U.S.?” another person penned.

“There. Are. Children. In. Cages!” commented another.

Trump is already under fire because of a leaked audio recording made in 2017 by fired White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, in which Trump offered her a $180,000 salary to work for the president’s reelection campaign, as reported by NBC News.

To publicize her new book, Unhinged, which details her controversial tenure as White House communications director for the Office of Public Liaison, Manigault Newman has been releasing snippets of secretly taped audio of conversations between herself and Trump officials.

Of the exchange with Lara Trump, according to NBC News, Manigault Newman claims the offer was “hush money” and “an attempt” by the administration “to buy my silence, to censor me, and to pay me off.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• Who are Diamond and Silk, the pro-Trump sisters at the center of the Facebook controversy?

• Every time Melania Trump has used her clothes to make calculated political statements

• Melania Trump smiles while reporter yells questions about ‘lying’ Donald Trump Jr.

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