Donald Trump got excused from his hush-money trial to be with his son. Instead, he’s spending half the day with Republican donors in Minnesota.
Barron Trump is, rightly, a mystery to the American public. Donald Trump’s youngest child was only 10 when his father was elected president in 2016, and it’s generally considered poor form for journalists or politicians to criticize the president’s minor children. We can see that Barron is tall — his father once said the teen was already towering over him at six-foot-seven — and that’s pretty much all we know. But now Barron, who turned 18 in March, has become a topic of political discussion, partly under circumstances outside his control.
Under New York state law, Donald Trump is required to attend all the proceedings of his hush-money trial. As he left court on day one of his trial, Trump began complaining that Judge Juan Merchan wouldn’t let him attend Barron’s high-school graduation on May 17.
“It looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son, who’s worked very, very hard, and he is a great student,” Trump lamented. “It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial.”
Trump continued complaining about the judge’s cruel decision in several posts on Truth Social:
And Trump’s elder sons chimed in, too:
Judge Merchan is truly heartless in not letting a father attend his son’s graduation
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) April 15, 2024
Pure evil. https://t.co/cN5MxEtvFS
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 15, 2024
In reality, Judge Merchan never banned Trump from attending his son’s graduation; he merely said on April 16 that he wasn’t ready to rule on the defense’s request for court to be adjourned on May 17. A short time later, the judge granted Trump’s request.
Now we’ve learned that while Trump played up how much he wanted to be with his son at his graduation, he isn’t even spending the full day with Barron. The Minnesota Republican Party announced this week that Trump will headline its annual Lincoln Reagan dinner on May 17:
Trump plans to attend a fundraiser on the day of Barron's graduation.
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) May 7, 2024
Wonder what Judge Merchan thinks when he sees this. pic.twitter.com/d74ms3FhP1
Trump has time to attend both events. To get specific: The graduation ceremony at Oxbridge Academy, a private school in Palm Beach, starts at 10 a.m. Presumably, the ceremony takes around one to two hours. Trump can have lunch with his son afterward and take a few pictures, but he can’t spend too long celebrating since it takes about three and a half hours to fly from southern Florida to St. Paul, Minnesota, and there’s a one-hour time difference. So if Trump wants to make it to the 5 p.m. fundraising dinner, he probably needs to leave Florida around 2 or 2:30 p.m. at the latest.
Presumably, Barron will not attend the Friday-evening event with his father, as few 18-year-olds want to celebrate their graduation by hanging out with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. But Barron is planning to get more involved in politics in the coming months. On Wednesday night, he was selected by the Republican Party of Florida as one of the state’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, which will take place in Milwaukee in July. All of Barron’s siblings, except for Ivanka Trump, will also serve as delegates.
Could this mean we’ll get to see Barron awkwardly praising his dad in a convention speech or even taking a White House job that he’s totally unqualified for? Perhaps. But I hope, for Barron’s sake and America’s, that he’ll just stick to quietly being tall.
