Barron Trump reached another important milestone in his journey to adulthood, graduating from high school Friday, but that doesn’t mean he still won’t have his very protective mother, Melania Trump, looking out for him.
Melania Trump sat front and center in the bleachers at Barron’s high school, the exclusive Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, reports said. She was joined by her Slovenian father, Victor Knavs, and her husband, former President Trump, who took a day off from being prosecuted in Manhattan on charges related to his hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Former US President Donald Trump (R), with former First Lady Melania Trump (C) and her father Viktor Knavs (L), attends the graduation ceremony of his son, Barron Trump, at Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, May 17, 2024. (Photo by Giorgio VIERA / AFP) (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)
When the name “Barron William Trump” was announced, the 6-foot, 7-inch Trump scion, wearing a cap and gown, stepped up on stage, briefly waved to his parents in the crowd and accepted his diploma.
Barron’s plans after high school have not been revealed, including if and where he’ll be going to college. But one thing the 18-year-old won’t be doing is serving as an at-large delegate to the Republican National Convention. After the Florida Republican Party announced that he would be a delegate, Melania Trump “put her foot down” and announced that her son wouldn’t participate in nominating his father to be the 2024 GOP presidential candidate, the Daily Mail reported.
“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’s office said in a statement last week. While no details were given for why Barron was withdrawing from the convention, it’s been known that the former first lady has long worked protect her son from the rough-and-tumble world of her husband’s MAGA politics and his controversies.
As Donald Trump has been embroiled in his criminal trial in Manhattan, Melania Trump has locked herself in a “tight bubble” in Mar-a-Lago, the Daily Mail reported. Her chief priority has been Barron, with a source close to the Trumps telling the U.K. news outlet: “He’s so regal. He’s a little Melania.”
But the Daily Mail said it’s become difficult for Trump’s third wife to keep her husband’s alleged personal indiscretions from spilling over into their private family life. The trial has included lurid testimony from Stormy Daniels, detailing her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in July 2006, when Barron was a few months old.
Observers also told the Daily Mail that Melania Trump wouldn’t have been happy about the way her husband used Barron’s graduation as a reason to complain about the judge in his criminal trial.
After the first day of court proceedings in Manhattan in April, Trump came outside and briefly spoke to the TV cameras, lambasting Judge Juan M. Merchan for saying that he may have to skip his son’s high school graduation in Florida, the Daily Mail reported.
“(Barron’s) a great student and he’s very proud of the fact he did so well and was looking forward for years to having his graduation with his mother and father there, and it looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial,” the former president said.
Stephanie Grisham — who served as a top White House aide to Melania Trump before a falling out over the former first lady’s indifference to speaking out during the Jan. 6 insurrection – said Melania “wasn’t happy” that her husband talked about Barron in the context of his criminal case.
“He talked about missing Barron’s graduation to the cameras and then again on Truth Social because it (created) a lot of coverage about that and it’s just not something she would have liked,” Grisham said.
News that Barron would serve as a delegate at the convention came the same week that Daniels testified. The news also was accompanied by reports that Barron was prepared to step into the political limelight, joining his older half-siblings, Don Jr., Eric and Tiffany, at the convention.
Some Trumpworld figures raved about the prospect of Barron being his father’s true political heir, the Daily Mail said in a profile of the teenager.
“Barron is handsome, tall — taller even than his father — and very knowledgeable for someone his age. He’s also far more politically interested than people realize,” an insider said in a glowing Daily Mail profile.
“I see all the attributes of a future president if he has the appetite for it. And why not? He has the Trump genes,” the insider said.
Another Trumpworld figure, Iranian-American business mogul Patrick Bet-David, voiced his delight in meeting Barron during a recent dinner at Mar-a-Lago, according to the Daily Mail. Bet-David described Barron on his podcast as “sharp, funny, sarcastic, tough — not weak,” the Daily Mail reported.
Moreover, in a clip posted to X, formerly Twitter, Bet-David praised Barron’s good manners and humility, calling him a “freaking stud of a kid.”
Bet-David furthermore explained on his podcast that Barron is prepared for the challenges of entering the political arena on behalf of his controversial father and his 2024 campaign to return to the White House. He said Barron told him, “It’s officially fair game to come after me.”
The teen apparently was referring to the media and to Trump’s opponents, who had taken a hands-off approach to writing about him or criticizing him when he was a minor. “‘I don’t care. Good, do it,” Barron reportedly said, according to Bet-David.
