A resurfaced video from 2010 shows Donald Trump offering sweet words of wisdom to a then four-year-old Barron.
Much has changed for the pair since, as Donald has won the presidency twice and an 18-year-old Barron now attends NYU business school.
The love between father and son is apparent in the clip, which is from an episode of Larry King’s old CNN talk show.
Back when he was better known as ‘The Donald’ from his NBC mega-hit The Apprentice, he offered some extremely grounded advice for his young son as he asks for a kiss goodbye.
‘I want all As,’ Trump said, referring to his son’s grades. ‘And when you get older, no drugs. No alcohol. No cigarettes. And, you know what else? No tattoos. I don’t ever want to see tattoos on you.’
Barron then talks to his mother Melania, who lets him know he’s about to go to lunch and school.
He sees his father one more time, with a tiny briefcase in tow as Trump says he’s headed out to learn ‘reading, writing and arithmetic.’
The advice is consistent with the life of Trump, who has been vocal about his decision to be teetotal after the tragic death of his brother, Fred Trump Jr.
A resurfaced video from 2010 shows Donald Trump offering sweet words of wisdom to a then four-year-old Barron
Much has changed for the two in time since, as Donald has won the presidency twice and Barron now attends NYU business school. In this grab, he’s seen leaving Donald’s office with a tiny suitcase in hand
Trump has spoken frankly about Fred Jr.’s death and told the New York Times he was wrong to pester his brother when they were young for quitting the family real estate business.
Donald said he said he was ‘too young’ at the time and wishes he had said to him: ‘You’ve got to do what you love.’
‘I’ve known so many people that were so strong and so powerful (yet) they were unable to stop drinking,’ he said.
‘(Fred) was a great guy, a handsome person. He was the life of the party. He was a fantastic guy, but he got stuck on alcohol.
‘And it had a profound impact and ultimately (he) became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism. He would tell me, “Don’t drink ever.” He understood the problem that he had and that it was a very hard problem.’
In 2018, he suggested that he’d never done drugs – adding to a claim that he’d ‘never had a beer’ as a youth or as an adult.
Trump told a reporter asking about Brett Kavanaugh’s heavy, under-age drinking: ‘I don’t drink. I’ve never had a drink. I don’t drink beer. I’ve never had a beer. And I’m not saying good or bad, some people like it. I just chose not to do that for a lot of reasons.
‘I remember my college days, everybody was drinking. It was like normal. I was abnormal. It was totally normal. Everybody was drinking and they used to drink a lot of beer and there was nothing wrong,’ he said on the South Lawn of the White House. ‘I just didn’t choose to do that, but almost everybody else did so. I don’t see anything wrong.’
Much has changed for the two in time since, as Donald has won the presidency twice and Barron now attends NYU business school
Trump has told reporters that he’s never had a drink and joked ‘can you imagine’ what ‘a mess I’d be’ if he had indulged in drink.
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Barron Trump's unexpected response when friends at his liberal university ask who he votes for
‘I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life. It’s one of my only good traits. I don’t drink. Whenever they’re looking for something I say “I’ve never had a glass of alcohol. I’ve never had alcohol for whatever reason”. Can you image if I had what a mess I’d be? I’d be the world’s worst. But I never drank,’ he said.
A book released in 2019, however, features club owners, models and bartenders who were staples of the New York City nightlife scene in the 1990s have insisted they witnessed the future president drinking.
The clip of Donald and Barron, now 18, resurfaces as there has been a recent surge in interest in Trump’s youngest son and only child with First Lady Melania.
The president-elect’s youngest child is rarely seen publicly, but is credited with helping his dad earn the ‘bro vote’ by getting him to engage in some podcast interviews.
The 6’9′ college freshman was ‘very involved’ in selecting which podcasts the former president would appear on and was the one who urged him to sit down with video game streamer Adin Ross as well as with Joe Rogan, who hosts the most popular podcast in the world.
Besides appearing on podcasts, Trump also won over the hyper-masculine bro vote by attending football games, UFC fights and tapping into young men’s interests in alternative banking by launching his own cryptocurrency business.
Barron was reportedly a driving force behind the crypto decision, as well.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, joined by Melania Trump, left, and Barron Trump, arrives to speak at an election night watch party
On election day, his mother Melania posted a photo online that she’d taken of 18-year-old Barron in a polling booth, alongside her caption: ‘Voted for the first time – for his dad.’
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Barron Trump joins his father and closest aides in rare behind-the-scenes footage from Mar-a-Lago
At the Trump victory rally, in the early hours of Wednesday, public fascination with Barron Trump again spiked online – as it does whenever he stands next to his father and it becomes clear quite how much taller he is.
It’s been said that Donald Trump is none too keen on this unflattering comparison and does his best to avoid being snapped too close to a son who, at a reported 6’9″, has a good six inches on him.
All this from the young man who, just a few years ago, was a soccer-obsessed mommy’s boy who was never allowed to stray too far from Melania. During his father’s first term as president, Barron became the first boy to grow up in the White House since JFK Jr. in 1963. And insiders said he was far kinder and more polite than they’d ever expect a Trump offspring to be.
However, he grew up quickly. In April this year, after Barron had just turned 18, he invited a small group of influential podcasters and internet influencers over for dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
‘For an hour and a half, and we just watched Barron run dinner with stories, entertainment, everything,’ said Patrick Bet-David, one of the guests. Donald Trump even turned up later to play the role of DJ, using his iPad to play songs – incredibly loud – like Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’.
Then, in May, it was announced Barron had been chosen to serve as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention. Just two days later, however, his mother declined the invitation on his behalf ‘due to prior commitments’.
In July, Trump then formally introduced Barron to the political world, at a rally in the Sunshine State, where he was given two standing ovations.
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When Barron sat down, his father observed to the crowd: ‘That’s the first time he’s done it [stood up to acknowledge applause]. That’s the first time, right? You’re pretty popular. He might be more popular than Don and Eric. We gotta talk about this. Hey, Don, we gotta talk about this.’
As Trump’s two older sons, Don Jr and Eric, sitting nearby, grinned weakly, their father added: ‘Welcome to the scene, Barron.’
By then, however, he hardly needed any introduction to the MAGA base. On social media, Barron-mania is well-established – with the youngest Trump child often compared to Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar.
There’s been speculation that Trump – who can no longer count on the services in government of daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner – might even pull Barron out of university to help him in the White House.
If so, he’d surely have his First Lady to answer to. Melania reportedly hates politics and resents the intense scrutiny she receives as a result of Trump’s political career.
Even so, it may be that Barron has always been destined for politics.
‘He is a very strong-minded… He is independent and opinionated and knows exactly what he wants,’ Melania once said of Barron to Parenting magazine. He was five at the time.