It is unfortunate that this needs to be reiterated throughout every presidential administration, but it does.
There was an onslaught of tweets last night decrying President Trump for not bringing his teenage son, Barron, to Game 5 of the World Series in Washington, D.C. Please stop it. The underage and apolitical children of politicians are not fair game for public criticism.
Like President Obama, the Trumps are very selective about which public events their youngest son attends. He and Trump’s second youngest daughter, Tiffany, only attend the most apolitical of his engagements, and sadly but surely, last night was anything but.
Wait, did Trump really not bring Barron to the game? Or his grandchildren?
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 28, 2019
A Father not taking his son to a baseball game, let alone a World Series game, is perhaps the worst indictment of a “family man” I’ve ever heard.
I have a feeling Trump could have gotten Barron a ticket, if he got tickets for Scalise and Gaetz.
— Rob Anderson for Louisiana (@RobAnderson2018) October 28, 2019
We didn’t have any money growing up, but my dad still took me to every sporting event he could afford. Donald Trump has unlimited resources, yet he couldn’t even take Barron with him to the baseball game?
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) October 28, 2019
The president’s personal moral failures have been a part of tabloid folklore since he bragged about cheating on his first wife on the cover of the New York Post. But as far as this call was, it was the right one. By not bringing Barron to the World Series, Trump protected him from a stadium of drunk D.C. denizens — just 4% of whom voted for him — booing him on television. In a more civil society, Trump would have been able to attend the event quietly with his family instead of his closest congressional allies, and the stadium could have appreciated the office of the presidency rather than deride Trump personally.
But Trump knows that’s nothing more than a pipe dream, so he made the wise decision not to subject Barron to the animus into which our political sphere has devolved.
Feel free to criticize Ivanka Trump, who works in the White House, or Hunter Biden, who has worked in politics and obtained positions thanks entirely to his father’s elected office. But just as Malia Obama deserves to attend concerts in peace, Barron deserves to attend or not attend the events his parents deem most appropriate without his father’s critics dragging him into their analysis.
