The crowds at Trump’s political rallies are used to surprises, but earlier this summer there was an appearance which caused a palpable frisson to ripple through the crowd. Although he didn’t address the audience directly, the 6ft 9in figure of 18-year-old Barron Trump stood tall at the Florida event in July. The youngest of Donald Trump’s offspring stood up from his seat, turned on his feet, and began shaking his fist in the air, waving, and making his father’s trademark “thumb’s up” gesture. He didn’t need words, just stepping out of his father’s shadow with such previously unseen vim, was enough for the crowd to go wild and respond with a standing ovation.
“Look at him,” Trump bellowed proudly from the podium. “That’s the first time he’s done it.” Looking down from the stage at Barron, he continued: “That’s the first time, right? You’re pretty popular. He might be more popular than Don and Eric. Hey, Don we gotta talk about it, huh?”
But this wasn’t an impulsive show of support from the only child he has had with his current wife Melania. A month later, there were hints that this was all part of the Trump masterplan to appeal to Gen Zs when Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, revealed that Barron was now being asked for advice on attracting support from younger voters.
Barron is said to have been behind Trump’s on-camera interview with social media influencer Adin Ross — a 90-minute conversation at Mar-a-Lago which was live-streamed on the Kick platform. Ross had previously been kicked off Twitch for using homophobic language and displaying racist messages; now he had an audience with the former president and was giving him a Rolex and Tesla Cybertruck. Trump had previously appeared on YouTube personality Logan Paul’s podcast — all part of the plan for him to reach young male voters. Men, who have been so influential in the rise of the far right in Europe.
How far Barron and Melania are behind this new political role to reinvigorate Trump senior for a younger generation is open to question. In early September, he was very much in student mode and photographed arriving on campus at New York University in Manhattan. It was his first day at the Stern School of Business and he emerged from an SUV wearing a white polo shirt, black trousers, and Adidas trainers, surrounded by secret service agents.
His first port of call was the office of the business school’s interim dean, JP Eggers. Embarrassingly, it has since emerged that Eggers was one of 20 faculty members who back in 2020 had signed an open letter to business leaders sounding the alarm about the threat of a second Trump presidency. Trump, the letter said, “… denigrates science, peddles in lies, incites violence, attempts to delegitimize the press, politicises everything from the justice department to the CDC to the postal service, and seeks to undermine the integrity of American elections.”
How much awkwardness this has caused for Barron is unknown, but if Trump is asking his youngest son to step into the ring in the last two months of the campaign, he will be asking him to put allegiance to his father’s career ahead of his own college demands.
“In desperation, it seems like Trump’s capable of trying just about anything to see what will stick to the wall,” one political strategist told me.
“It seems like Barron is an extremely private person, and there’s no reason to think that he would want to take on that role, or that he would be particularly good at it. He’d be better off leaning into conservative influencers like Adin Ross.”
Justin Till, a Republican county attorney in west Texas and former county Republican chair, said it would depend on Barron’s message. “The Democrats currently have the ground game and social media is wildfire for [Kamala] right now. I just don’t know if sending Barron out on the stage at a rally is going to do it.”
In Europe, it has been noted how young educated men who are driving the rise of the far right – drawn to its emphasis on masculinity and nationalist politics. There is evidence that this is a crucial constituency for the Republicans too – especially when they are looking for more youthful energy to distract from the senior energy of the man at the top.
Dr Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, said that there is a deeper issue here “is what is driving young men, particularly young white men of voting age, in this MAGA reactionary populist direction?”
Henson said both Republican and Democrat campaigns are trying to move relatively small numbers of people in swing states. “If he (Donald) was willing and Melania was willing and they thought it would help the Trump campaign, I can see them probably giving it a try. The old cliche of “every vote counts has become somewhat accurate.”
Until this last week, the former first lady has been notably absent from her husband’s presidential campaign trail – yet she has recently shared a flurry of videos on social media to plug the publication of her tell-all, self-titled memoir: Melania.
While the first focused on delivering her “truth”, the second centred on her perceived “challenges” about her husband’s free speech, and the third demanded “answers” over the attempt on his life in July – it was to Barron who she turned for her fourth video posted on X/Twitter in a week.
Sharing a sepia photo of her holding Barron as a baby, she gushes “The challenges and rewards of motherhood from sleepless nights to joyful milestones, bring immense fulfilment which only a mother understands.” Another archive, black and white photo in the video shows Melania placing her head on her infant son’s cheek as she concludes: “The lessons I’ve learned from these experiences are profound and they have shaped me in ways that I could have never imagined.”
It is clear that both mother and father see Barron has a crucial role to play in shaping the narrative for both, but democratic strategist David Logan said their views may differ about how. In May the former first lady effectively spurned an invitation for Barron to serve as a delegate at this year’s Republican convention. A statement issued at the time read: “While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments.”
Melania Trump is notoriously protective over her son. When he was younger, he spoke with a noticeable eastern European accent, despite never living in Slovenia. “He spends most of his time with me,” she explained to a CNN reporter at the time.
And most of that time was spent in luxury. After he was born in 2006, TV host Ellen DeGeneres sent the Trumps a gold pushchair; Barron’s own suite in Trump’s Manhattan penthouse – which Melania apparently referred to as “Barron’s living room” — boasted a kitchen, living room, and quarters for the nannies tasked with looking after him. Later, when his dad became president, the young Trump had free rein of The White House’s private cinema, bowling alley, and swimming pool. His own room there was apparently stocked with his favourite snacks, as well as the specific toiletries he liked to use.
