Barron Trump’s campaign involvement

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Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney says Donald Trump is turning to his youngest son, Barron, for advice on attracting support from younger voters in his presidential campaign.

Mulvaney, NewsNation contributor and former Republican politician, told a Tuesday evening panel on the network that the former president is seeking input from his 18-year-old son on the mindset of voters his age and how to garner their support.

Barron Trump is the former president's only child with former first lady Melania Trump. He is increasingly getting more involved in his father's political scene, having received a standing ovation at a campaign rally in July. Previously not in the public political eye, Barron is still much more removed than some of Trump's other children, like Donald Jr. and Eric.

Weeks after his public political debut in July, Gen Z political influencer Bo Loudon called Barron one of his "best friends," in a post praising his father, the GOP presidential candidate.

Loudon, whose parents are conservative commentator Gina Loudon, who was on the 2020 Trump campaign media advisory board and co-chair of Women for Trump, and former Missouri state Senator John William Loudon, has over 200,000 followers on Instagram and 120,000 on X, formerly Twitter.

Earlier this month, Trump thanked Barron for helping facilitate an introduction to Adin Ross, a 23-year-old streamer who spoke with Trump in a live interview about his presidential bid for over an hour.

In a post to Truth Social a day later, Trump said that the interview "EXPLODED, but in a very positive way," on the platform Kick, which Ross often uses to stream himself playing video games.

Mulvaney said that Trump has "always empowered the youngest, 'the weakest,' the bottom—he's always listened to everybody on the totem pole, he's going to listen to Barron."

He cited anecdotes of Trump taking this approach with business endeavors in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as in more recent years in the political arena, asking Air Force enlistees, "what do you think we should be doing, why are we here, how do you feel about this, etcetera, etcetera."

Mulvaney, who previously served as director of the Office of Management and Budget and is a former South Carolina representative, added, "give him credit, he's not 18 years old anymore, Trump is not, so asking an 18-year-old how 18-year-olds think is probably not the stupidest thing he's ever done."

How is his son supposed to know? He's never been president?

Being a spectacularly short tree, how far away can the seed land?

It was nearly 3 a.m. when President-elect Donald Trump hit the stage in Florida after securing the presidency. Melania smiled and waved. Donald Trump Jr. and the UFC chief Dana White were chatting and laughing along the curtains. Hovering above the joyous fray stood a key figure in the 2024 presidential race—18-year-old Barron Trump.

At 6’9”, Trump and Melania’s only child is a towering and unmissable addition to the incoming MAGA White House. The youngest of Trump's five children, Barron has acted as a youth liaison to the campaign, coordinating and signing off on a series of interviews that the senior Trump participated in geared explicitly at appealing to younger voters.

The strategy worked.

Of the 41 million eligible voters between the ages of 18–24, Trump made significant gains against Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, Trump lost the Gen Z demo to President Joe Biden by 24 percent. He more than halved that figure on Tuesday, losing to Harris by just 11 percent. In the 18–29 age bracket, Trump performed better than any GOP presidential candidate of the last two decades. And according to NBC exit polls, Trump secured the young white male vote outright.

As strategists called on Trump to moderate his message and focus on winning white suburban women, he listened to the instincts of Barron, who suggested he target their sons.

In the final months of the 2024 election, Trump appeared on a number of podcasts listened to by millions of young American men. Trump golfed with the LIV Tour star Bryson DeChambeau; the pair listened to Elvis. Trump sat with the former MIT professor-turned-famous-talker Lex Fridman, who openly pondered the “spiritual benefits” of psychedelic drugs with the former president. During Trump’s appearance with comedian Theo Von, the Arkansas hellraiser admitted to being a recovering cocaine addict. Trump listened sincerely.

The podcast tour was crafted by 27-year-old Alex Bruesewitz, a social media influencer with nearly half a million followers on X. When Bruesewitz pitched the tour to Trump, the Don only had one question: “Have you talked this over with Barron?” asked Trump. When Bruesewitz replied “No,” Trump instructed him to reach out to Barron for approval.

arron signed off on the schedule. Weeks after surviving an assassination attempt, Trump met with 23-year-old streamer Adin Ross at Mar-a-Lago. The Gen Z influencer presented Trump with the kind of gift that a 23-year-old American man would love—a Cybertruck wrapped with a photo of Trump surviving the attempt on his life.

But Trump’s offbeat talk circuit wasn’t done. Only a week before the November election, Trump landed his white whale—a much-requested appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Spotify’s $100-million man had repeatedly stated in the run-up that he wouldn’t interview Trump or Harris because he didn’t want to tilt the scales. But with less than 14 days to the election, Rogan announced he would interview Trump for his massive audience.

The conversation lasted three hours and spanned a variety of topics. Trump was his affluent and affable self, weaving between subjects with ease. At one point, he credited Barron with helping the campaign reach a younger demographic.

“I have a son who is very smart and tall, Barron, right? He knows all about you and guys I’ve never heard of. He said, ‘Dad, you don't know how big they are,’” Trump said of Barron. “It’s a whole new world out there. Have you seen the numbers? Billions of hits, it’s crazy. A Republican is always down 30 with young people, I’m up 30.”

he 2024 election was the election where new media firmly took control from the powers that be. From X to TikTok, the surge in new organizations and personalities that dictated the tone and outcome of the race skyrocketed. And the Trump campaign, with his son Barron signing off on appearances, intuitively recognized this in a way that Harris didn’t.

The Barron memes filtered across early X Wednesday morning following Trump’s reelection. Autists were comparing Barron to the Lisan al Gaib, a title used for the prophet or messiah in Frank Herbert’s novel Dune. Others noted that Barron stood stone-faced behind his father as every other member of the Trump family smiled in a post-victory party. “I can smell their fear,” read one viral post that showed Barron and Donald standing next to one another.

Republicans had all but given up on the youth vote after decades of being systematically repelled at the ballot box. All that changed this year. Students at universities across America poured into their quads and ran through their halls in celebration of Trump’s victory. Videos of young men and women performing Trump’s trademark dance are racking up hundreds of millions of views across social media. The permission structure has been broken. The age-old axiom that the youth are liberal and the old conservative has been turned upon its head.

Only days before he survived an assassin’s bullet, Trump boasted about Barron at a rally in Doral, Florida. “He's a very special guy,” Trump touted as Barron rose in a navy suit and raised his fist in celebration. Months later, Trump would honor his son again, calling him the “King of the Internet” at an October rally. The crowd loved it.

What lies next for Barron remains to be seen. He’s technically still a freshman at NYU, where he is enrolled in the Stern School of Business. Should he want to be closer to his father’s administration, Barron could transfer to a college in DC or simply drop out of school altogether. The latter seems less likely. Whatever path the young Trump should choose, the role he played in the 2024 election will be lionized forever.