Barron Trump convention invitation puts limelight on 2024 family involvement

Former President Donald Trump prided himself in dismantling the Bush political dynasty, but now he is remaking the Republican Party in his image with the help of his family.

Despite Barron Trump, the former president’s youngest and only son with ex-first lady Melania Trump, no longer making his political debut this summer during the 2024 Republican National Convention, the Trump family’s position within the GOP is poised to outlast the one-time commander in chief.

Had Barron Trump, 18, accepted the Florida Republican Party’s nomination to represent the state on the convention floor in Milwaukee this July — alongside other listed delegates Donald Jr. and Eric, his half-brothers from the former president’s first marriage to Ivana, and other half-sister Tiffany, his father’s only daughter with second wife Marla Maples — it would have been a very high-profile first foray into politics after years of his family, particularly his mother, fiercely protecting his privacy.

“While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments,” a spokeswoman for Melania Trump told the Washington Examiner.

Regardless, the Trump family has an outsized importance to the former president’s third campaign and Republican politics, more broadly, in-person, on TV, and online, which has become more significant to the patriarch’s organizing and fundraising efforts as he defends himself in court four days a week during the New York criminal hush money trial.

“President Trump’s family are a critical part of his campaign, as they have been since 2016,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner.

“It’s not at all unusual for family members to be involved in campaigns, but the Trumps — especially Eric, Don Jr., and Lara — are exceptional surrogates,” Republican strategist Cesar Conda added to the Washington Examiner. “They are his force multiplier.”

Don Jr. and Eric Trump have been advising the former president’s campaign in unofficial capacities and appearing on the trail on his behalf, with Don Jr. more focused on politics than Eric, who has concentrated more on the Trump Organization. Both of their positions at the Trump Organization are precarious, however, after New York Judge Arthur Engoron decided in February that neither of them could be an “officer” or “director” of a corporation or legal entity in the state for two years as part of their $354.9 million penalty in the Trump civil fraud case.

Don Jr., who was encouraged by Pennsylvania Republicans to run for the state’s U.S. Senate seat in 2022 after turning down the opportunity of a 2020 Senate run in Wyoming, has been investigated over his involvement in the former president’s campaigns, including his 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer who had promised him opposition research on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before that election, and his attempts to undermine the results of the last contest against President Joe Biden, though he has never been charged with a crime. Don Jr. has been engaged to ex-Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was once married to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), since 2020, during which time has raised money for her father-in-law.

At the same time, Eric Trump’s wife Lara, a former television producer and now recording artist who was also rumored to be considering a run for North Carolina‘s U.S. Senate seat in 2022, was unanimously voted co-chair of the Republican National Committee in March with former North Carolina Republican Party chairman Michael Whatley. Yet her promotion has provided fodder for Democrats who have criticized the Trump family for self-dealing, with specific national security concerns created by their foreign business interests, similar to allegations Republicans have made against Hunter Biden, who, himself, will be on trial in California and Delaware for tax and gun crimes.

“Lara Trump is a self-described ‘ultra-MAGA’ extremist who won’t back down from her position that at the RNC, she’ll tell anyone who doesn’t support Donald Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda to leave, rejecting roughly one-third of Republican primary voters right out of the gate,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Alex Floyd wrote in a statement at the time. “Her new nepo title only ensures that the RNC will keep putting up disastrous fundraising numbers and continue to underperform in election after election.”

Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump, the former president’s eldest and only daughter with Ivana, and her husband Jared Kushner have distanced themselves, at least publicly, from the 2024 campaign. The couple were among her father’s closest confidants in the White House, but Ivanka has downplayed speculation she has political ambitions of her own as Kushner pursues more business with countries, such as Saudi Arabia.

“I love my father very much,” Ivanka told Fox News in 2022. “This time around I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.”

“While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,” she said. “I am grateful to have had the honor of serving the American people and I will always be proud of many of our administration’s accomplishments.”

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Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, polar opposites politically and personally, had an acrimonious relationship during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, with Trump mocking Bush as “Low Energy Jeb” and scrutinizing his brother, former President George W. Bush, for the Iraq War. Trump’s first interaction with a Bush was actually the pair’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, when he asked then-Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater to be a candidate for the elder Bush’s vice president in 1988. Bush Sr. called Trump a “blowhard” in 2017.

“If one presidential candidate can disassemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had,” the Trump White House responded at the time.