Trump’s family circle looks different as he returns to the White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Donald Trump returns to the White House on Monday, his family circle will look a little different than when he first arrived eight years ago.

His youngest son, Barron, was in fifth grade at the time. He’s now a freshman who towers over his 6-foot-2 father. Granddaughter Kai, who was nine years vintage in 2017, is now an aspiring social media influencer and impressive golfer. Grandson Joseph, who last posed on Trump’s lap with a Lego model of the White House, is now 11 years vintage.

The most prominent relatives in Trump’s political sphere, daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared, are in Florida this time after working in his first administration.

Family members can provide presidents with a source of moral and informed support, companionship, and even relief from the world’s problems. Not to mention, it also sometimes gives the president a headache.

“Families can do things that other people can’t, and they can be trusted in ways that other people can’t either,” said Tevi Troy, a former George W. Bush administration official and author of several books about the family Presidency. “Everyone needs someone they can talk to late into the night when they’re unwinding, so to speak.”

The president-elect has five children – three of whom are married – from his marriages to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and his current wife Melania Trump. He has ten grandchildren and the eleventh is on the way.

A look at Trump’s family circle then and now:

His wife:

THEN: She spent the first months of Trump’s term in office in the family’s Manhattan penthouse so that 11-year-old Barron wouldn’t have to change schools in the middle of the year. After moving to the White House, she traveled alone and with Trump across the United States and other countries, including to promote her children’s initiative “Be Best,” while at the same time fiercely protecting her privacy.

NOW: During Trump’s 2024 candidacy, she avoided vigorous campaigning, limiting her public appearances to key moments such as the campaign launch, the Republican National Convention and election night. She released her self-titled memoir slow last year and will be the subject of a documentary distributed by Amazon Prime Video, expected to be released later this year. While some doubt Trump’s 54-year-old wife will spend much time in the White House, she said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that she has already packed and picked out the furniture to take to the boss’s mansion want.

His children: Donald Trump Jr.

THEN: Trump’s eldest son, now 46, campaigned for his father in 2016 and 2020.

NOW: Trump Jr.’s influence has grown to the point where he pushed his father to vote for his close friend JD Vance as vice president. He also pushed for former Democratic Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s nominees for director of national intelligence and Health and Human Services, respectively. Trump Jr. helps run the family real estate business and is honorary chairman of Trump’s transition. He has a podcast and said his job is to prevent “bad actors” from getting into the administration. He recently flew to Greenland on his father’s plane; The president-elect has expressed a desire to take control of the mineral-rich Danish territory.

Trump Jr. has five children — or “Smurfs,” as he sometimes calls them — with his former wife, Vanessa Trump. They are Kai Madison, 17; Donald John III, 15; Tristan Milos, 13; Spencer Frederick, 12; and Chloe Sophia Trump, 10.

THEN: Ivanka, 43, stood up for her father in 2016 and moved her family from New York City to Washington to work as a senior adviser in his White House. She also campaigned in 2020, but moved to Florida with her family and retreated from the spotlight after his loss.

NOW: As Trump prepared to run in 2024, Ivanka announced that she loved and supported him but was retiring from politics to focus on her husband and three children. However, she accompanied her father and other family members on election night and when he rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in early December after Time Magazine named him Person of the Year. She told The Skinny Confidential podcast that this time she just wanted to “act as a daughter to him” and be there to watch a movie or a sports game.

Ivanka and her husband have three children: Arabella Rose, 13; Joseph Frederick, 11; and Theodore James Kushner, 8.

THEN: The 40-year-old helped run the family business and participated in his father’s campaigns.

NOW: Eric is also honorary transition chair and close advisor to his father. However, he remains more focused on running the family business. In September, he and his brother launched a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial, and their father helped launch it in an interview on social media platform X.”

Eric and his wife Lara have two children: Eric Luke, 7, and Carolina Dorothy Trump, 5.

THEN: Trump’s daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples, was a 23-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate who kept a low profile when Trump was first elected.

NOW: She has been more present in the 2024 campaign but still largely avoids the spotlight. Tiffany, 31, and her husband Michael Boulos are expecting their first child this year. Boulos is a businessman who accompanied Trump in the final phase of the campaign. His father is Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman who helped Trump reach out to the influential Arab-American community in the swing state of Michigan. Trump has named Massad Boulos senior adviser for Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

THEN: At the start of Trump’s first term, Barron and his mother lived in the family’s Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan so he could finish his school year. When they arrived in Washington, his soccer net appeared in the so-called First Lady’s Garden.

NOW: Barron, 18, is a first-year economics major at New York University. His parents and Trump campaign officials praise him for recommending podcasts popular with newborn men that the president-elect appeared on during the campaign. Barron will have a bedroom in the White House, said Melania Trump on “Fox & Friends.”

“I’m very proud of him, of his knowledge, even of politics and of giving advice to his father,” his mother said on the show. “He brought so many young people with him. He knows his generation.”

Other family members in the spotlight: Lara Trump

THEN: Trump’s daughter-in-law, 42, campaigned for him throughout his campaigns. After Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, she considered running for a U.S. Senate seat in her home state of North Carolina, but ultimately decided against it. She became a commentator on Fox News.

NOW: As Trump accelerated his 2024 campaign, he named his daughter-in-law co-chair of the Republican National Committee, where she served as a TV-ready advocate overseeing the party’s fundraising, voter outreach and “election integrity” initiative. She resigned from the RNC after the election and withdrew her name as a possible successor to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, whom Trump had chosen for secretary of state.

Lara Trump loves fitness and has her own activewear line. She also tried out a part-time job as a singer and released a few songs. Daughter Carolina is named after her home state.

THEN: Kushner, 44, was also a key figure in Trump’s 2016 campaign. He joined his wife as a senior adviser in the White House, where he worked, among other things, on U.S. policy toward Israel and the broader Middle East.

NOW: Kushner has retreated from the political spotlight — but his father could soon step in. Trump announced after the election that he would nominate Charles Kushner, a real estate developer, to be U.S. ambassador to France. The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions years earlier.

If Trump

THEN: Kai was in elementary school when her grandfather became president.

NOW: Donald Trump Jr.’s 17-year-old granddaughter is an aspiring social media influencer. Her behind-the-scenes election night video reached 3.7 million views on YouTube. Other posts about her grandfather were viewed millions more times on TikTok. Kai gave her first public speech at the Republican National Convention and is an avid golfer who sometimes plays with her grandfather.

“If I’m not on his team, he’ll try to get into my head and he’s always surprised that I can’t let him get to me,” she said at the convention. “But I have to remind him.” “I’m a Trump too.”

Arabella Kushner

THEN: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s daughter was six years vintage when her grandfather showed China’s Xi Jinping a video of her singing Chinese-language songs in time-honored Chinese clothing.

“It’s very good, isn’t it? She’s very smart,” Trump said. Xi responded that Arabella was her grandfather’s “little angel” and a “messenger of Sino-American relations.”

NOW: Arabella is 13 years vintage and enjoys singing, playing the piano, horseback riding and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, according to a social media post from her mother.

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Gomez Licon reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.