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09-05-2024
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s youngest child, Barron Trump, is to enter the political limelight with a role at July’s Republican National Convention.
Delegates from across the US will formally select the party’s nominee for president at the gathering in Wisconsin, set to be Barron’s father.
The 18-year-old has been named on a list of delegates-at-large to attend the event for the state of Florida.
Previously, Barron’s mother Melania has kept him largely out of the public eye.
The only child from their nearly two-decade marriage, Barron did not immediately move to Washington after his father’s inauguration.
He remained with his mother at their Trump Tower home in New York to finish his school year before they relocated in the summer of 2017.
His move to the White House, at age 11, made him the first male child to live there since John F Kennedy Jr in 1963.
Attending a private school in Maryland, he rarely appeared in public, with his mother reported to be fiercely protective of his privacy.
Comments on his appearance and behavior from his father’s critics often drew fierce rebukes from the first lady’s office, as well as from other former first children, most notably Chelsea Clinton.
Since the family’s move to Florida post-presidency, Barron has attended a private school in Palm Beach and continued an impressive growth spurt, he now stands at 6ft 7in (201cm).
The high school senior, who graduates next week, appears on the Florida delegate list with a number of the ex-president’s close allies, according to NBC News.
The list includes Barron’s half-sibling Eric, Donald Jr and Tiffany but not Ivanka, who has publicly said she will not be a part of her father’s re-election campaign.
In a statement to US media, the Florida party chairman Evan Power said: “We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation.”
A Trump campaign official told media that Barron was “very interested in our nation’s political process”.
The party convention, to take place in the city of Milwaukee on 15-18 July, will see Trump confirmed as the Republican candidate for November’s presidential election.
He has won enough state-level primary contests including one held in Florida to clinch the nomination. Each of the nation’s 50 states and several territories send delegates to the convention to officially vote for their presidential candidate, which is expected to be a simple process since there is no viable challenge to Trump.
The ex-president has already won 2,037 delegates in the Republican primary election, far more than the 1,215 needed to clinch the nomination.
On the other side of the political divide, President Joe Biden is due to be confirmed as the Democratic nominee at his party’s convention in Chicago this August, setting up America’s first presidential rematch since 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, again defeated Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat.
This time, Trump is juggling his campaigning with legal battles. He faces dozens of criminal charges across four separate cases.
His first criminal trial is under way in New York City, where he has been charged with falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.
He has been given special permission by the judge to take time out of court to attend Barron’s high-school graduation next week. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
