John Jefferson
Barron Trump, youngest son of the former president, started his freshman year at New York University earlier this month – sparking a flurry of TikTok videos of the 18-year-old making his way around campus, trailed by Secret Service agents.
Fellow NYU students have been taking and sharing videos of Barron, aptly described by WIRED as “Sasquatch-esque”: short, frantic, blurry clips of the elusive 6’9” freshman making his way to class. Many of these videos are posted then reposted, with users making their own edits and setting them to background music.
One video, from September 10 with 12,000 likes, features a fuzzy three-second clip of Barron in all-black walking through what appears to be the halls of NYU as a re-mix of Charlie Puth’s hit “We Don’t Talk Anymore” plays in the background.
A second user posted the same clip accompanied by Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer.” It got 21,000 views and more than 500 likes.
Another short, blurry video, posted on September 5 with more than 41,000 likes, shows Barron in a white polo shirt wearing a black backpack on a Manhattan street as he attends his first day of class.
In each clip, a handful of older men appear to be close behind freshman, possibly members of his Secret Service detail.
Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who protected George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump along with their families, previously told The Independent that the Secret Service has to closely monitor videos like these to protect presidential kids.
“The Secret Service has to monitor [social media],” Eckloff said last month. “Let’s say that a president’s child is at a party and someone tweets out their picture. Now, their location is broadcast on social media, and they could become a target. That can endanger everybody.”
“The general threat environment that we face in the 21st century is greater than it has ever been,” he continued. “People’s location and activities tend to be more publicly known, and social media is more reactive.”
Barron isn’t the first presidential child to have his fellow college students watching his every move.
In 2017, Harvard students launched into a social media frenzy when Malia Obama arrived on campus. Social media users were quick to share photos and videos of the 19-year-old’s life in Cambridge.
Barron enrolled at NYU after graduating from Florida’s prestigious Oxbridge Academy earlier this year. The 18-year-old made headlines recently after he failed to show at the launch of his family’s new cryptocurrency venture after his brothers, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., hyped up his appearance.
“He’s not here anymore, We took too long,” crypto entrepreneur Farokh Sarmad said in an interview with the other Trump sons on Monday night, which was broadcast live on X. “We’re gonna try and get him back.”
“Damned teenagers!” Don Jr interjected with a laugh. “I’m like the old boomer now – the grumpy old man with a white beard.”
Barron might also be on his way to a political career, The Independent previously reported.
Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, recently revealed that Barron was being asked for advice on attracting support from younger voters. The 18-year-old is said to have been behind Trump’s on-camera interview with social media influencer Adin Ross, who is largely popular with young men.
Trump also introduced the 18-year-old at a campaign rally “for the first time” in July.
Barron, who sat in the front row, stood up and waved to the crowd and pumped his fist after his father introduced him and other members of the Trump family during his rambling 90-minute remarks from his Doral resort in Miami. Trump also joked that his youngest son is “more popular” than his other sons.
Read the full article here