Awkward Barron Trump Moments Caught On Camera

During President Donald Trump's four years in office, the world learned a great deal about his policies (MAGA!), his favorite sport (golf), his preferred soft drink (Diet Coke — sometimes as many as a dozen cans a day), and his fondness for social media (lots of all-caps and the phrase "Witch Hunt"). The one topic that has remained a mystery, both then and now, has been Trump's youngest son, Barron, about whom not much is known. The older Trump children — Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany — helped campaign for their father, kept his private businesses running, and even served in his administration. But Barron has been kept away from the public eye so he can enjoy as normal a life as possible. His mother, Melania Trump, is said to be especially protective of him. Her last public acknowledgment of her son was a tweet in March 2021. Posting a photo of balloons showing the number 15, she wrote simply, "Happy birthday BWT."

Now 17, Barron is a junior at the Oxbridge Academy, a private school close to his Mar-a-Lago home. As yet, there's no indication he intends to maintain a more public profile if Trump wins in 2024. In fact, Barron may fade even further into the background, since he'll likely be in college for most of the next term. Yet as hard as his parents have tried to preserve his privacy, there have been a few select moments over the years in which he's been seen...well, acting his age. 

We all like to think our children hang on to every word we say, but of course, that's totally not true.How many times have your kids turned a deaf ear to your requests to clean their rooms or turn off their tablets? Even kids of the rich and powerful have moments (or hours, or days...) where they tune Mom and Dad out. That was the case for Barron Trump back in July of 2016, when he attended a campaign event in which his father made a speech. Just 10 years old at the time, Barron was seated in a row with his mother, Melania, and several members of his extended family, including half-siblings Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, and Tiffany Trump. Thus surrounded, there was no chance for him to escape the room — or the TV cameras.

ABC News caught Barron looking less than thrilled to hear his father talking about political issues. He rubbed the arm of the seat with his sleeve. He yawned. He slumped over to look at the floor. He jiggled his water bottle. Not even hearing the crowd applauding his dad seemed to move Barron; he just stared off into the distance and played with his hair. Mom Melania briefly cast a glance at her son, but chose not to correct him publicly. Commenters on the YouTube video were sympathetic to the preteen. "Poor kid, he just wants to go home and play some Minecraft," said one viewer.

In all fairness, nobody asked Barron Trump whether he wanted to be uprooted from his opulent gold-and-marble Manhattan penthouse — where he had his own private floor, thank you — and forced to start over in D.C. for four years. Nobody gave him a say in the rules presidential kids are expected to follow, such as having to be followed everywhere by a Secret Service detail, dressing up and minding one's manners at state dinners, and not being allowed to leave the White House unattended. (For security reasons, no one is allowed even to open a window there.) So if he wasn't feeling super-enthusiastic about his father's inauguration day, we can give him a little leeway.

Following the rituals, music, and speeches of the swearing-in, the Trump family made the traditional walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to their new presidential home. Walking slightly ahead of his parents, Barron gamely smiled and waved to the cheering crowd. At one point, the parade turned a corner, bringing the tween next to his mother. As seen in this YouTube clip, at 2:31 Melania reached out her left hand to Barron, who quickly swatted it away. Perhaps he felt holding Mom's hand in public was a little too babyish for a 10-year-old. Whatever the reason, it made for an uncomfortable moment in an otherwise triumphant day.

The rejected public display of (maternal) affection wasn't Barron's only cringey move on Inauguration Day 2016. Later in the ceremony, cameras caught the newly minted First Lady Melania Trump trying to connect with her son yet again. What was meant to be a quick high-five Yay, Dad! moment turned into a hilarious sequence of near-misses that could have come straight out of a Marx Brothers comedy. Her hand went up; his didn't. She put her hand down; he put his up. She raised hers again; he turned away. Then Barron turned back and swung, almost smacking his mom on the arm. Perhaps if Donald Trump is elected again, his wife and son will work on their timing for January 2025.

For the Trumps, transitioning out of the White House was considerably more difficult than transitioning into it. Being voted out in the 2020 presidential election was a blow in itself, but the events that followed were nothing short of infamous. On January 6, 2021, Trump held a rally in which he urged his followers to go to the Capitol and protest the election results. That protest turned into an all-out invasion of the building that ended in five deaths, multiple injuries, and a national sense of shock. What it didn't end in was a reversal of the decision. 

Tradition demanded that the Trumps vacate the White House promptly on Inauguration Day. Opting not to help the Bidens transition into their new roles, the former president and his family made a solemn walk down the South Lawn for the last time. Barron had grown from a twitchy preteen to a poised 14-year-old in the last four years. He had also grown to a stunning 6'7" tall, towering over both his parents. But he seemed no more comfortable in front of the cameras than he was when his father took office. Barron's I-wish-I-weren't-here expression was clear to see as he approached the waiting helicopter. One can imagine that expression changing to relief as he realized he was no longer a first son, but a regular teen heading for the privacy of the family home in Mar-a-Lago.