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Donald Trump introduced his 18-year-old son Barron at a political rally “for the first time” during the criminally convicted former president’s return to the campaign trail on Tuesday night.
Barron, who sat in the front row, stood up and waved to the crowd and pumped his fist after his father introduced him and other members of the Trump family during his rambling 90-minute remarks from his Doral resort in Miami.
Trump joked that his youngest son is “more popular” than his sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump.
“That’s the first time he’s done it,” Trump said from the stage. “He might be more popular than Don and Eric … Welcome to the scene, Barron, I don’t know. He had such a nice, easy life. Now it’s a little bit changed. Special guy, right?”
Barron Trump, who graduated high school in May, has largely remained out of the way of his father’s political blitzkrieg. A then-9-year-old Barron was hesitant about leaving Manhattan for the White House when Trump was elected president, and he attended schools in New York, Florida and Maryland in the years that followed.
Before a jury convicted him, Trump convinced the judge overseeing his hush money trial in New York to briefly adjourn so he could attend Barron’s graduation ceremony in Florida.
“A very young man who’s now going to college,” Trump said on Tuesday. “Got into every college he wanted to and he made his choice. And he’s a very good guy.”
Barron, the only child Trump has had with third wife and former first lady Melania Trump, was selected to attend the Republican National Convention as a Florida delegate to back his father’s nomination. But his mother said he had declined the invitation because of “prior commitments.”
He was recently captured on an apparently covertly recorded video sitting beside his father on a golf cart at his New Jersey club after Trump’s debate against President Joe Biden.
Trump called Biden “an old broken-down pile of c**p” on the tape. “Now we have Kamala. She’s so f***ing bad,” he added.
At Trump’s rally at the Doral resort, nearly two weeks since his last major campaign event in the aftermath of his debate, the presumptive Republican nominee challenged the president to another debate “this week” as well as 18 holes of golf.
A noticeably sweating Trump revived familiar false claims about immigration and crime and downplayed the attack on the Capitol on January 6, fuelled by his ongoing bogus narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.
He also teased his pick for a running mate — an announcement that is expected before or during the Republican National Convention next week. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who rallied the crowd before Trump joined the stage, is widely expected to be in consideration.
“I think they probably think I’m going to be announcing that Marco is going to be vice president, because that’s a lot of press. That’s a lot of press,” Trump said.
