In her first interview since her husband won the presidential election, former and future first lady Melania Trump said Friday that their son, Barron, had played an important role in President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, advising him to appear with media personalities popular with younger voters.
That strategy was widely credited as helping Trump improve his standing with Gen Z voters on his way to winning the White House a second time.
“He was very vocal” in advising his father, Melania Trump said on the morning show “Fox &Friends,” adding, “He knew exactly who his father needs to contact and to talk to.”
Those younger voters were no longer watching television, Trump said, and relied on phones, podcasts and streamers.
Barron Trump, she said, “brought in so many young people — he knows his generation.”
Barron Trump, an 18-year-old freshman at New York University, was adjusting to college life in New York in unusual circumstances, his mother said, acknowledging a question about his visibility because of his security detail.
“I don’t think it’s possible for him to be a normal student,” she said.
“This is your road,” she added, describing her advice to him. “This is your life.”
“Everyone is so fascinated with Barron,” Lawrence Jones, a “Fox and Friends” host, said to Melania Trump at one point.
The interview featured mostly lighthearted content, touching on her husband’s dancing at public events and her recent memoir. Trump noted that she was interviewing potential staff members for her second term as first lady. Her experience in the White House, she added, made the process more familiar.
“My team is in contact with the White House, so that’s a plus, but we have all what we need,” she said.
Trump may divide her time between her home in New York and the White House, people close to the president-elect have indicated.
Trump last month rejected an invitation from the current first lady, Jill Biden, to meet at the White House after Donald Trump won reelection, breaking with a decades-old tradition.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2024 The New York Times Company