Barron Trump enters political fray as an RNC delegate. Here’s what we know about youngest Trump

Just months after turning 18, Donald Trump’s youngest son Barron Trump is taking his first steps into the world of American politics.

The teenager, who will graduate from high school later this month, has been selected to appear as an at-large delegate for Florida at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this July, NBC News reported this week.

His father is expected to formally accept the Republican party’s nomination for the presidency at the event and name his running mate, a matter of intense media speculation since the primaries.

Barron’s much older half-siblings Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump have been chosen to serve as Sunshine State delegates as well.

Long shielded from the spotlight by his mother Melania Trump, Barron was last dragged into the headlines last month when Mr Trump complained bitterly that the judge presiding over his New York hush money trial would not allow him to attend his graduation ceremony.

On the very first day of the criminal trial on Monday 15 April, the Republican presidential candidate had emerged from the courtroom to complain to reporters that Judge Juan Merchan would not allow him to be present for the milestone event in his son’s life.

His fury was soon echoed by members of the conservative media, with Fox News guest Piers Morgan urging the former president to risk jail time rather than miss such an important occasion.

However, the justice did not actually say anything of the sort, remarking merely that he expected Mr Trump to attend court every day of his trial like any other criminal defendant, as required by law, and that he would rule on permitting him an off-day closer to the date, depending on how the case before him was proceeding.

Two weeks later, on Tuesday 30 April, the judge ruled that he would allow Mr Trump to attend Barron’s graduation on Friday 17 May after all, declaring himself satisfied that the trial was running to schedule.

The fourth full week of the trial is now under way, where the former president is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election in order to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter in July 2006. The defendant denies the affair and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

After being dragged into his father’s trial over the graduation furore, Barron’s appearance as a delegate at the RNC is the clearest sign yet that he is finally emerging from the shadows and entering the Trump family spotlight.

So who is Barron Trump and what do we know about him?

Barron William Trump was born on 20 March 2006 and is Mr Trump’s only child with his third wife.

He was baptised at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida – a venue he returned to in January for the funeral of his maternal grandmother, Amalija Knavs.

The youngest of all of the former president’s children, Barron was raised at Trump Tower in Manhattan and attended the affluent borough’s Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School.

Barron was still a child when his father won the presidency in November 2016 and entered the White House.

Although he did attend his father’s inauguration in January 2017, he was largely restrained from public view by his mother, who initially did not join her husband in Washington DC but chose to stay behind in New York so that her son could finish his elementary school year.

The first lady’s protective attitude was more than justified given that, incredibly, he was attacked by The Daily Caller, aged just 11, over his choice of clothes.

A bizarre August 2017 article in the Caller argued that Barron should be “dressing like he is in the White House”, rather than wearing a harmless red shark T-shirt in public like any other kid his age.

Having taken his Columbia Grammar classmates on a tour of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Barron was subsequently enrolled in St Andrew’s Episcopal School, a private institution in Potomac, Maryland.

There, he was largely allowed to pursue his education in peace until his father lost the 2020 presidential election, at which point the family relocated to Mr Trump’s sprawling Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Barron then enlisted at the nearby Oxbridge Academy in 2021, the institution from which he will now graduate next week.

Little else is currently known about the youngest Trump, although he is understood to be fluent in Slovenian thanks to his mother’s influence and a keen soccer fan.

He has been seen wearing an Arsenal shirt and met DC United players when they came to the White House for the annual Easter Egg Roll in April 2017.