President Donald Trump, his wife, Melania, and their 11-year-old son, Barron Trump, headed to Camp David for the weekend.
It’s the first time that President Trump has visited the presidential retreat since taking office, typically preferring to decamp to his estate in Palm Beach.
Barron Trump has started making a fashion statement in his recent television appearances at his father’s side. First, he wore an “the expert” T-shirt – which subsequently sold out at J. Crew – and fiddled with a fidget spinner as he disembarked from a plane to move into the White House. He headed to Camp David wearing shorts with red and white athletic socks.
It’s a reminder of how long it’s been since a boy was in the White House. You have to go back to John F. Kennedy Jr. and 1963, in fact.
Many recent presidents have had only daughters. The National Post says Barron Trump, 10, is also the second youngest child to live in the White House in 50 years, after Sasha Obama. Before JFK Jr., you have to go back to 1901 and the boys of Theodore Roosevelt to find sons young enough to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Obamas, Clintons, Johnsons, and Nixons only had daughters. George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, did too. Other presidents – such as Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush – had sons, but they were adults by the time their fathers entered the White House. Donald Trump will become the oldest president inaugurated, but he’s one of the few recent presidents to have a son under 18 at the time he took office.
According to Fox News, Camp David is more “rustic” than Trump is probably used to; “The government-owned retreat is in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, just a short helicopter ride from Washington,” Fox reported, adding that it has been the site of many historic meetings.
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill there in 1943, reviewing plans for the invasion of Normandy. Jimmy Carter used it for peace talks between Egypt and Israel. George H.W. Bush’s daughter Dorothy, or ‘Doro,’ got married there,” Fox reported, adding that Barack Obama visited the retreat 39 times.
Trump, the First Lady, and their son, departed for Camp David on June 17, just in time to celebrate Father’s Day there. According to USA Today, the first lady’s parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, also went along to Camp David. They were seen with the First Family when Melania and Barron arrived in Washington D.C. earlier this month to move into the White House.