DOJ to investigate officials who obstruct Trump’s immigration enforcement, memo says
The Justice Department wants federal prosecutors across the country to investigate state or local officials who obstruct immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump’s new administration, according to a new memo obtained by Fox News.
In the memo, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, Trump’s former defense attorney, outlines “interim decisions and policy changes” pending the confirmation of Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi. He said interim changes are necessary as an initial response to Trump’s executive orders regarding “three of the most serious threats facing the American people.”
Those threats, Bove wrote, are cartels and other transnational criminal organizations, such as Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), which “are a scourge on society resulting in an unstable and unsafe border and huge flows of illegal immigration in violation of U.S. law.” The memo said the second threat is how “brutal and intolerable violent crime by members of these organizations and illegal aliens is escalating rapidly across the country.” The third threat defined by Bove is how the “fentanyl crisis and opioid epidemic are poisoning our communities and have inflicted an unprecedented toll of addiction, suffering, and death.”
CAREER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS REASSIGNED TO DIFFERENT POSITIONS: REPORTS
“The Justice Department must, and will, work to eradicate these threats,” Bove wrote. “Indeed, it is the responsibility of the Justice Department to defend the Constitution and, accordingly, to lawfully execute the policies that the American people elected President Trump to implement. The Justice Department’s responsibility, proudly shouldered by each of its employees, includes aggressive enforcement of laws enacted by Congress, as well as vigorous defense of the President’s actions on behalf of the United States against legal challenges. The Department’s personnel must come together in the offices that taxpayers have funded to do this vitally important work.”
The memo states that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and other authorities “require state and local actors to comply with the Executive Branch’s immigration enforcement activities.”
Bove reiterated how “federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests, pursuant to, for example, the President’s extensive Article II authority with respect to foreign affairs and national security, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Alien Enemies Act.”
Bove said U.S. Attorneys Offices “and litigating components of the Department of Justice shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution, including for obstructing federal functions” in violation of federal statutes.
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“Finally, laws and actions that threaten to impede Executive Branch immigration initiatives, including by prohibiting disclosures of information to federal authorities engaged in immigration-enforcement activities, threaten public safety and national security,” the memo said. “The Civil Division shall work with the newly established Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group, within the Office of the Associate Attorney General, to identify state and local laws, policies, and activities that are inconsistent with Executive Branch immigration initiatives, and, where appropriate, to take legal action to challenge the laws.”
Trump reveals what Biden wrote in letter stashed away in Oval Office desk
President Donald Trump on Tuesday described the letter former President Biden left him inside the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as “inspirational” and teased reporters that he may release the “very nice” note at some point.
Trump was asked about the letter, which he found inside the Resolute Desk on Monday with a little help from Fox News Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy, during a press conference announcing a $500 billion investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
“It was a very nice letter,” Trump told reporters. “It was a little bit of an inspirational-type letter. Enjoy it, do a good job. Important, very important. How important the job is.”
The president added that he appreciated the letter so much that he may release it to the public.
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“It was a positive, for him, in writing it,” Trump continued. “I appreciated the letter.”
Trump found the letter – addressed to “47″ – after Doocy asked if President Biden left him a letter while he was signing a flurry of executive orders in the Oval Office on Monday in front of a gaggle of reporters.
“He may have. Don’t they leave it in the desk? I don’t know,” Trump told Doocy before discovering the white envelope. “Thank you, Peter. It could have been years before we found this thing.”
Trump had then teased reporters that they should read it together before pulling back the reins. He said he’d open the letter later Monday night.
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The presidential tradition of leaving a letter to their successor began in 1989 when President Ronald Reagan left the White House after two terms in office, with former President George H. W. Bush taking over.
Bush continued the tradition despite losing the White House to former President Bill Clinton after just one term in office. The tradition has carried on to this day through Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Biden.
Biden, however, was the first president to find himself in the unique position of writing a letter to someone who is both his successor and the predecessor who left him a note four years earlier. Trump became the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s.
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Biden has said Trump left him a “very generous letter,” but has so far declined to share the content of what Trump wrote, deeming it private.
One security contingency was notably absent at Trump’s inauguration
President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony Monday featured the largest, most complex security footprint of any inauguration in U.S. history.
The nation’s capital was transformed seemingly overnight from a pedestrian-friendly city into a daunting and impenetrable fortress – the result of a multi-agency task force that erected 30 miles of anti-scale fencing, coordinated aerial surveillance and drones, and saw the deployment of tens of thousands of law enforcement, military personnel, undercover agents, and national guard trucks across D.C.
The impressive, whole-of-government security effort on Inauguration Day was unprecedented, and not without reason: Trump was the victim of two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign — including a shooter who came so close to him as to nick his ear — and a domestic threat landscape that was heightened further by the terrorist-inspired attack in New Orleans and the execution-style killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan late last year.
It’s notable, then, that this year’s sprawling security footprint did not expressly include one key component considered fundamental to U.S. tradition: The naming of a designated survivor.
In D.C., the tightly coordinated federal protection efforts were carefully planned long ahead of Trump’s inauguration ceremony by the Secret Service and many other federal agencies.
It’s both a nod to recent security concerns, and more largely an effort to protect the U.S. body politic, foreign dignitaries, donors, and thousands of attendees from any mass catastrophe or threat.
The designated survivor, who in a catastrophic event would bear the responsibility of leading the U.S. in the aftermath of a crisis, is typically a Cabinet officer when major security events put elected officials all in one spot, such as inaugurations and State of the Union addresses.
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Previous designated survivors have included former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was tapped for the role during President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
Gates, a George W. Bush appointee, was kept on by Obama and served in his Pentagon role until July 2011, according to his official Defense Department biography.
The survivor’s location, and sometimes identity, remains confidential until after the event disperses and its attendees have safely returned home. In high-profile events, a broader contingency plan is in place.
As Garrett Graff reported in 2016, Gates’s role as designated survivor during Obama’s inauguration also included the support of another government heavyweight — James Clapper, then the undersecretary of intelligence — who stowed away during the ceremony deep in an underground government bunker in Pennsylvania, a backup to the backup, if you will, and a nod at the detailed succession plan carefully crafted by a group defense, intelligence, and other federal agencies over the span of some 40-plus years.
So it was notable that no designated survivor was named during the 47th presidential inauguration.
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No reason was given for the absence of the designated survivor, which was first reported by NBC News.
It’s possible that the sprawling security presence coordinated in the run-up to Jan. 20 was deemed sufficient to protect against any threats.
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It’s also possible the event, which was held indoors and thus restricted to the public and to members of the news media, was limited enough as not to warrant the designated survivor.
Ahead of the event, FBI and Secret Service personnel stressed the stringent security measures in place and the tight vetting of any ticketed attendees.
David Sundberg of the FBI’s Washington Field Office told Fox News earlier this week that the bureau was not tracking “any specific or credible threats” for Inauguration Day.
“All attendees will undergo screening,” said Matt McCool, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office.
These individuals told Fox News that the fencing alone is more than any other designated National Special Security Event in the past.
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“Designated checkpoints will be set up for members of the public interested in attending the inauguration,” McCool said ahead of the inauguration — a protocol also applied to attendees of the modified Capital One festivities, which were moved inside due to frigid temperatures.
Neither the White House, DHS nor the FBI immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the absence of a designated survivor.
Liberal parents reportedly clashing with their Trump-supporting sons
Liberal parents are now the ones clashing with their conservative sons after the election, according to a New York Times article published Sunday.
“When Eli brought a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat home from college this summer, [Alex] Behr threw it into the corner of his bedroom. They argued about guns, immigration and abortion, struggling to do so without permanently damaging their relationship,” the article read.
It continued, “’facts don’t matter to you,’ [Alex] Behr wrote in a moment of frustration during one text exchange about Mr. Trump’s legal battles. ‘love you. have a good day.’”
In a twist from the old dynamic of liberal children fighting with their conservative parents, Callie Holtermann wrote that some progressive mothers are struggling with how to handle their sons voting for President Donald Trump.
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“Some liberal parents aren’t so sure they should try to intervene,” she wrote. “Plenty see their sons’ embrace of Mr. Trump as an expected act of rebellion, or a choice made by an independent young adult that they should respect. For others, it has felt like a painful rejection of the values they have tried to instill in their children.”
“I’ve had to do a lot of soul-searching and reading about it to not feel like I’ve failed as a mom,” Alex Behr told the New York Times.
Though a majority of young voters still voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump gained significant ground with the youth vote and won 53% of men aged 18-44, according to a Fox News voter analysis.
Some parents pointed to social media and online conservative influencers for pushing more right-leaning political beliefs that seemed to have “affirmed [their] fears and vulnerabilities as [they were] aging into [their] masculinity.”
“I was like, who’s got a hold of my son?” Melanie Morlan told the New York Times.
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One young man, Max Sorokin, argued the shift was reinforced by the Democratic Party’s failure to appeal to his demographic.
“They didn’t even try to make young men sympathize with them,” he said. “They sort of ignored them.”
His father, Alexei, was critical of his son’s new views, though he described becoming more frustrated with some of the Democratic Party’s censorious behavior.
“I told my son, ‘Look, you’re privileged,’” Alexei Sorokin said. “You don’t feel fragile because you’re young and healthy and white.”
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Most parents ultimately chose to continue loving their sons, in direct contrast to advice from liberal commentators.
“I always tell him, ‘I might get worried about you and I might feel sad because I don’t think you understand some things that maybe you will down the road,’” Melanie Morlan said. “‘But I’m going to love you more when you’re struggling, because it’s just politics.’”
Trump unloads on ‘radical left’ bishop over politically charged prayer service remarks
President Donald Trump blasted Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, after she directed politically charged remarks towards him during an interfaith service of prayer for the country at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday, the day after Trump’s inauguration.
“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President,” she said. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and [transgender] children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
She went on to say that “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”
“I ask you to have mercy Mr. President on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here,” she said.
REVEREND ASKS TRUMP TO HAVE ‘MERCY’ ON IMMIGRANTS, LGBTQ CHILDREN WHO ‘FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES’
Trump trashed Budde and her performance in a post on Truth Social, suggesting that she and her church should apologize to the public.
The president also pointed out that there are illegal immigrants who have entered the country and killed Americans.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA,” Trump declared in the post on Wednesday.
“Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!” he asserted.
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Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., indicated in a post on X that he is Episcopalian, and objected to Budde’s remarks.
“As a conservative Episcopalian who supports President Trump and his agenda, I am profoundly disappointed that Bishop Mariann Budde politicized today’s inaugural Service of Prayer for the Nation. By disregarding President Trump’s appointment of Scott Bessent, a brilliant, openly gay man to serve as Treasury Secretary and Elon Musk, a genius, first generation legal immigrant to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, Bishop Budde’s gratuitous criticisms ring hollow,” Barr declared.
“Sadly, the only message Bishop Budde delivered through her unwelcoming and hypocritical words to the President was that the Episcopal Church’s motto of ‘All are Welcome’ apparently doesn’t apply to the majority of Americans who voted for Donald Trump.”
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Budde has been open about her opposition to Trump in the past.
“We need to replace President Trump,” she said in a video clip that ABC News posted on social media in 2020.
AOC tries to spin narrative on anti-trans bill but only infuriates her own party
Democrat lawmakers in Washington, D.C., pushed back against the GOP-led Protection of Women and Girls in Sports act last week with unsubstantiated arguments that the law would enable sexual predators to give genital examinations to young girls.
This argument was not rooted in any language within the bill, as Republicans insisted that no genital inspection would ever be necessary and that proof of birth gender could simply be determined with a birth certificate.
Still, many prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., used the sexual predator argument in statements and during testimony on the House of Representatives floor.
This tactic has alienated some of the party’s loyal voters, who have unregistered as Democrats in response.
Prominent Rutgers law professor Gary Francione has been a lifelong Democrat dating back to the 1970s. In November’s general elections, he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., who was one of 206 Democrats to vote against the bill last Tuesday.
But Francione, who is an advocate for LGBTQ rights, abortion rights and even a vegan and animal rights abolitionist, said he was so offended by the Democrat representatives who tried to tie the bill to empowering child predators that he unregistered as a Democrat after last Tuesday’s hearing.
“That just made me very upset because it screamed out lack of integrity, lack of honesty,” Francione told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “This is the way you fight battles? By trying to insult other people who oppose you and disagree with you and insinuate that they’re child molesters or pedophiles? It seems to me you’ve lost the game. … I don’t know how they’re ever going to come back from this.”
Francione has a lifelong network of other Democrats in the field of law and other industries, and he says many of them share his beliefs and will also be unregistering from the party.
“I can say confidently of the people I know who are Democrats who I’ve spoken to, the vast majority of them are very unhappy about all of this stuff and feel that the party has lost its way,” Francione said. “I know a couple who said they are going to [unregister].”
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Francione initially announced his departure from the party in a viral post on X over the weekend. Many of his thousands of followers replied insisting they would follow his lead in unregistering from the party in response to the congressional representatives’ attempt to tie the bill to empowering sexual predators.
“This is what I have done. That is when I drew the line and swapped registration,” one user replied.
“I know the feeling. They drive you to it. Welcome to the club,” another wrote.
Francione said the premise of allowing trans athletes to compete against females is “discriminatory” against girls and women, and he went so far as to call the Democrat argument against the bill “insane” and “irresponsible.”
“I thought it was very unfair to the large number of very decent people who are concerned about fairness and safety in women’s sports,” he said. “These young girls, they train hard, they work hard, and then they get things taken away from them by men!”
Even former U.S. Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson admitted in a recent interview that even though she’s a lifelong Democrat, she was hopeful for President Donald Trump’s incoming presidency because of his stance on protecting women and girls in sports.
Multiple Democrat congressional representatives have chosen to refer to the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act as the “House GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act.” These individuals include Jeffries, Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Whip Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and many of the other 206 Democrats who voted against the bill.
Ocasio-Cortez dismissed the fact that there is no language in the bill that suggests any child would be subject to genital inspections during her argument.
“The majority right now says there’s no place in this bill that says it opens up for genital examinations. Well, here’s the thing, there’s no enforcement mechanism in this bill. And when there is no enforcement mechanism, you open the door to every enforcement mechanism!” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez later proclaimed, “Trans girls are girls!”
But many Democrats who opposed the bill strictly opposed it based on the unsubstantiated premise that it would empower sexual predators without even advocating for the right of trans athletes to compete in women’s sports, as enabling trans inclusion became a widely unpopular stance in November’s election.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., was one of those who took that stance. Moulton previously said that he believed Democrats advocating for trans inclusion was an issue that cost them in November, and he repeatedly defended his stance of opposing trans inclusion despite backlash from those in his own party and state in the weeks that followed President Donald Trump’s victory and Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
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But Moulton still voted against the bill on Tuesday, saying he does not want children to be “subjected to the invasive violations of personal privacy this bill allows.”
Just two Democrats joined the Republican majority in voting in favor of the bill: Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and Vicente Gonzales, D-Texas. Their decision to defect from the rest of the party and vote for the protection of women and girls in sports reflects a growing widespread position of many voters in their party and independents, according to recent data.
A recent New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports. Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women.
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Shortly after November’s election, a national exit poll conducted by the Concerned Women for America legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls’ and women’s sports and of transgender boys and men using girls’ and women’s bathrooms” as important to them.
And 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was “very important.”
Francione is one of the many longtime Democrat voters who believe the lawmakers in his party have failed in carrying out the will of their constituents on this issue.
“Progressives have failed,” he added. “Progressives have created a grievance Olympics … and it doesn’t work.”
Trump puts China on notice with first wave of tariffs — and when they take effect
President Donald Trump announced he is planning a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports on Feb. 1 over the country’s role in fentanyl trafficking.
“We’re talking about a tariff of 10% on China, based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “Probably February 1st is the date we’re looking at.”
When asked about a conversation he had with Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of his inauguration this week, Trump added that “We didn’t talk too much about tariffs other than he knows where I stand.”
During his campaign, Trump threatened tariffs as high as 60 percent on goods from China. He recently pledged on Truth Social to create an “External Revenue Service” to “collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources.”
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Trump and his allies have argued that such a plan would bolster American manufacturing while making it more difficult for adversaries like China to “export their way out of their current economic malaise,” as Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent told senators last week.
However, Democrats and opponents argue the cost of the tariffs would just be passed on to American consumers.
“Not only would widespread tariffs drive up costs at home and likely send our economy into recession, but they would likely lead to significant retaliation, hurting American workers, farmers, and businesses,” Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., recently said in a statement.
At a press briefing Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that “We always believe that there is no winner in a trade war or tariff war,” according to Reuters.
Trump also has said a 25 percent levy will be placed on all goods from Canada and Mexico by February.
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In late November, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that he would implement such tariffs on Jan. 20 as one of his first Executive Orders and that the tariffs “will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
Those promised tariffs haven’t gone into effect yet, but on Monday, Trump did sign an executive order titled “America First Trade Policy.”
“The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the United States Trade Representative, shall investigate the causes of our country’s large and persistent annual trade deficits in goods, as well as the economic and national security implications and risks resulting from such deficits, and recommend appropriate measures, such as a global supplemental tariff or other policies, to remedy such deficits,” the order says.
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“The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall investigate the feasibility of establishing and recommend the best methods for designing, building, and implementing an External Revenue Service (ERS) to collect tariffs, duties, and other foreign trade-related revenues,” it adds.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are celebrating a milestone anniversary on Jan. 22, 2025. The day marks the couple’s 20th wedding anniversary.
In 2005, well before real-estate developer Trump became the 45th and now the 47th president of the United States, he married his fiancé, model Melania Knauss, at a 350-guest wedding ceremony at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-By-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. The couple met in 1998 at a party in New York City.
Their wedding was followed by a star-studded reception at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
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The luxurious wedding was described at the time as fit for royalty — from the spectacular gown Melania Trump wore to the immaculately decorated reception at Trump’s private club.
The future first lady wore a $100,000 Christian Dior wedding gown. It consisted of a 13-foot train and a 16-foot-long veil covered in beading that reportedly took over 500 hours of hand sewing to create, according to published accounts of the event in The Palm Beach Post and The Palm Beach Daily News at the time.
The Donald J. Trump ballroom at Mar-a-Lago was reportedly adorned with 10,000 flowers for the occasion.
Chefs served caviar and Cristal champagne was available for 500 guests.
In an account in Jan. 2005, The Palm Beach Daily News said the dinner included “beggar’s purses filled with caviar, tenderloin done to a turn, miniature wedding cakes and the finest Cristal poured into one of those magical glasses that is never, ever empty.”
The report went on, “Long tables for 20 filled the ballroom, with its gleaming chandeliers and extensive gold leaf. Designer Preston Bailey set the tables in cream and gold, from linens and china to flatware.
“Enormous candelabrae were wrapped top to bottom in white orchids and roses,” the account continued. “A stage at the east end of the room held the Michael Rose Orchestra.
“This was not your typical wedding reception,” the society column in 2005 continued.
Writing in her recent bestselling memoir, “Melania,” the first lady said of her wedding day, “Although my wedding was grand in scale … what I felt in my heart was what every other bride feels on her special day. The pressure to ensure everything went smoothly was certainly real, but ultimately, my primary focus was celebrating Donald and my love and commitment, surrounded by my loved ones.”
In attendance at the ceremony were members of the media, Hollywood stars and many others.
Also present for the grand occasion were award-winning musicians Paul Anka, Billy Joel and Donna Summer — plus major political figures such as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
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The Trumps, of course, would go on to have their son, Barron William Trump — President Trump’s fifth and youngest child — who was born on March 20, 2006, in New York City.
Barron Trump is 18 years old today. He is a college student this year at New York University, at its NYU Stern School of Business.
He played a key role in his father’s winning a second White House term, according to many.
Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said on Fox News in Nov. 2024 that Barron Trump’s insistence that his dad go on “The Joe Rogan Experience” and other popular podcasts was critical to beating Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election.
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“It turns out that Barron Trump, who looks like a runway model, was telling his father, ‘You need to go on podcasts, you need to go on Joe Rogan,'” he said.
After a packed day of inauguration events on Monday, President Trump arrived that evening at the Commander-in-Chief Ball shortly after 10 p.m. ET.
He shared his first dance with his first lady – his first of three ball appearances that night.
Shortly after the band played “Americans, We,” Trump was introduced by an emcee at the Walter Washington Convention Center in Mount Vernon Square.
The balls follow a fully packed day of events that included President Trump’s formal swearing-in ceremony, an inaugural parade at Capital One Arena, an Oval Office signing ceremony and much more.
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