Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney says Donald Trump is turning to his youngest son, Barron, for advice on attracting support from younger voters in his presidential campaign.
Mulvaney, NewsNation contributor and former Republican politician, told a Tuesday evening panel on the network that the former president is seeking input from his 18-year-old son on the mindset of voters his age and how to garner their support.
Barron Trump is the former president’s only child with former first lady Melania Trump. He is increasingly getting more involved in his father’s political scene, having received a standing ovation at a campaign rally in July. Previously not in the public political eye, Barron is still much more removed than some of Trump’s other children, like Donald Jr. and Eric.
Weeks after his public political debut in July, Gen Z political influencer Bo Loudon called Barron one of his “best friends,” in a post praising his father, the GOP presidential candidate.
Loudon, whose parents are conservative commentator Gina Loudon, who was on the 2020 Trump campaign media advisory board and co-chair of Women for Trump, and former Missouri state Senator John William Loudon, has over 200,000 followers on Instagram and 120,000 on X, formerly Twitter.
AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Earlier this month, Trump thanked Barron for helping facilitate an introduction to Adin Ross, a 23-year-old streamer who spoke with Trump in a live interview about his presidential bid for over an hour.
In a post to Truth Social a day later, Trump said that the interview “EXPLODED, but in a very positive way,” on the platform Kick, which Ross often uses to stream himself playing video games.
Mulvaney said that Trump has “always empowered the youngest, ‘the weakest,’ the bottom—he’s always listened to everybody on the totem pole, he’s going to listen to Barron.”
He cited anecdotes of Trump taking this approach with business endeavors in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as in more recent years in the political arena, asking Air Force enlistees, “what do you think we should be doing, why are we here, how do you feel about this, etcetera, etcetera.”
Mulvaney, who previously served as director of the Office of Management and Budget and is a former South Carolina representative, added, “give him credit, he’s not 18 years old anymore, Trump is not, so asking an 18-year-old how 18-year-olds think is probably not the stupidest thing he’s ever done.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email on Wednesday.
Gen Z voters, a group that includes those age 18 to 27, are expected to play a big role in the election matchup between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who entered the campaign nearly 100 days before Election Day following President Joe Biden’s exit from the race. For many Gen Z voters, this will be their first time casting ballots in a presidential election.
Before dropping out, Biden had been trailing Trump among young voters. The race between Harris and Trump in this age group is much tighter, with both candidates actively seeking to win their support.
