World

Trump's family circle has a different look as he returns to the White House

Published

1 year ago

January 18, 2025

Trump's family circle has a different look as he returns to the White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Donald Trump returns to the White House on Monday, his family circle will look a little different than it did when he first arrived eight years ago.

His youngest son, Barron, was in fifth grade back then. He’s now a college freshman who towers over his 6-foot-plus (1.8-meter-plus) dad. Granddaughter Kai, who was 9 in 2017, is now an aspiring social media influencer and impressive golfer. Grandson Joseph, who posed in Trump’s lap with a Lego model of the White House last time, is 11 now.

The most prominent relatives in Trump’s political sphere, daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared, are in Florida this time around after working in his first administration.

Family members can provide presidents with a ready source of moral and sounding-board support, companionship and even relief from the world’s problems. Not to mention creating headaches for the president at times, too.

“Family can do things that other people can’t, and they can be trusted in a way that other people also can’t,” said Tevi Troy, a former George W. Bush administration official and author of several books about the presidency. “Everyone needs someone they can talk to late at night when you let your hair down, so to speak.”

The president-elect has five children — three of whom are married — from his marriages to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and current wife Melania Trump. He has 10 grandkids, with an 11th on the way.

A look at Trump’s family circle, then and now:

Former first lady Melania Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

His wife:

THEN: She spent the opening months of Trump’s term at the family’s Manhattan penthouse so that 11-year-old Barron wouldn’t have to switch schools in the middle of the year. After moving to the White House, she traveled around the United States and to other countries, alone and with Trump, partly to promote her “Be Best” children’s initiative while fiercely guarding her privacy.

NOW: She avoided active campaigning during Trump’s 2024 run, limiting her public appearances to key moments, such as the campaign’s launch, the Republican National Convention and election night. She released a self-titled memoir late last year and will be the subject of a documentary distributed by Amazon Prime Video that is expected to be released later this year. While some doubt that Trump’s 54-year-old wife will spend much time at the White House, she said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that she has already packed and picked out the furniture she wants to take to the executive mansion.

Donald Trump Jr. attends a rally for his father, Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

THEN: Trump’s eldest son, now 46, campaigned for his father in 2016 and 2020.

NOW: Trump Jr.’s influence has grown to the point that he lobbied his father to choose close friend JD Vance for vice president. He also pushed for former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s picks for director of national intelligence and health and human services, respectively. Trump Jr. helps run the family real estate business and is an honorary chairman of Trump’s transition. He has a podcast and has said his role is to prevent “bad actors” from getting into the administration. He recently flew on his father’s airplane to Greenland; the president-elect has expressed a desire to take control of the mineral-rich Danish territory.

Trump Jr. has five children — or “smurfs,” as he sometimes refers to them — with his former wife, Vanessa Trump. They are Kai Madison, 17; Donald John III, 15; Tristan Milos, 13; Spencer Frederick, 12; and Chloe Sophia Trump, 10.

Ivanka Trump exits the courtroom for a lunch break during a civil fraud trial against her father, former President Donald Trump, at New York Supreme Court, Nov. 8, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

THEN: Ivanka, 43, campaigned for her father in 2016 and moved her family from New York City to Washington to work in his White House as a senior adviser. She was on the campaign trail in 2020, too, but she and her family moved to Florida and retreated from the spotlight after his loss.

NOW: As Trump geared up for the 2024 run, Ivanka announced that she loved and supported him but was getting out of politics to focus on her husband and their three kids. She did, however, join her father and other family members on election night and when he rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in early December after Time magazine named him Person of the Year. She told “The Skinny Confidential” podcast that this time around she just wanted to “show up for him as a daughter” and be there to watch a movie or a sports game.

Ivanka and her husband have three children: Arabella Rose, 13; Joseph Frederick, 11; and Theodore James Kushner, 8.

Eric Trump appears in the spin room after a presidential debate, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

THEN: The 40-year-old helped run the family business and participated in his father’s campaigns.

NOW: Eric is also an honorary chair of the transition and a close adviser to his father. But he continues to focus more on running the family business. In September, he and his brother started a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial, and their father helped launch it in an interview on the X social media platform.”

Eric and his wife, Lara, have two children: Eric Luke, 7, and Carolina Dorothy Trump, 5.

Tiffany Trump and her husband, Michael Boulos, listen as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Williams Arena at Mignes Coliseum, Oct. 21, 2024, in Greenville, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

THEN: Trump’s daughter with second wife Marla Maples was 23 and a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate who kept a low profile when Trump was first elected.

NOW: She was more present in the 2024 campaign but still largely avoids the spotlight. Tiffany, 31, and her husband, Michael Boulos, are expecting their first child this year. Boulos is a businessman who traveled with Trump in the final stretch of the campaign. His father is Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman who helped Trump with the influential Arab American community in the swing state of Michigan. Trump has named Massad Boulos to be a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

Barron Trump stands on the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention in Washington, Aug. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

THEN: At the start of Trump’s first term, Barron and his mother stayed at the family’s Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan so he could finish his school year. When they got to Washington, his soccer net appeared in what’s known as the first lady’s garden.
NOW: Barron, 18, is a freshman New York University business student. His parents and Trump campaign officials credit him for recommending podcasts popular with young men that the president-elect appeared on during the campaign. Barron will have a bedroom in the White House, Melania Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”
“I’m very proud of him, about his knowledge, even about politics and giving an advice to his father,” his mother said on the program. “He brought in so many young people. He knows his generation.”
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Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump walks onstage at a campaign event for Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in Monroe, N.C., Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond, File)

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Other family members in the spotlight:Lara Trump

THEN: Trump’s daughter-in-law, 42, campaigned for him during all his runs. After Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, she considered running for a U.S. Senate seat from her home state of North Carolina but ultimately decided against it. She became a Fox News commentator.

NOW: As Trump revved up his 2024 campaign, he installed his daughter-in-law as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, where she was a TV-ready advocate overseeing fundraising, voter outreach and the party’s “election integrity” initiative. She stepped down from the RNC after the election and removed her name from consideration as a possible successor to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s choice for secretary of state.

Lara Trump is passionate about fitness and has her own line of activewear. She also has explored a side venture as a singer and has released some songs. Daughter Carolina is named after her home state.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are seen during the final day of the Republican National Convention, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

THEN: Kushner, 44, was also a key figure in Trump’s 2016 campaign. He joined his wife in the White House as a senior adviser, a role that included working on U.S. policy toward Israel and the broader Middle East.

NOW: Kushner has stepped out of the political spotlight — but his father could soon step in. Trump announced after the election that he intends to nominate Charles Kushner, a real estate developer, to be U.S. ambassador to France. The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after he pleaded guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions.

Kai Trump

THEN: Kai was in elementary school when her grandfather became president.

NOW: Donald Trump Jr.’s 17-year-old granddaughter is an aspiring social media influencer. Her behind-the-scenes video from election night garnered 3.7 million views on YouTube. Other posts related to her grandfather have been watched millions more times on TikTok. Kai delivered her first public speech at the Republican convention and is an avid golfer who sometimes plays with her grandfather.

“If I’m not on his team, he’ll try to get inside of my head, and he’s always surprised that I don’t let him get to me,” she said at the convention. “But I have to remind him, I’m a Trump, too.”

Arabella Kushner

THEN: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s daughter was 6 when her grandfather showed China’s Xi Jinping a video of her, in a traditional Chinese dress, belting out Chinese-language songs.

“It’s very good, right? She’s very smart,” Trump said. Xi responded that Arabella was her grandfather’s “little angel” and a “messenger of China-U.S. relations.”

NOW: Arabella is 13 and enjoys singing, playing the piano, horseback riding and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, according to a social media post from her mother.

___

Gomez Licon reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.

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World

How Sheila the three-wheeler dodged danger on a record 14,000-mile journey to tip of South Africa

Published

9 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

How Sheila the three-wheeler dodged danger on a record 14,000-mile journey to tip of South Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Englishman Ollie Jenks remembers when his friend first pitched the idea to him.

“It was so ridiculous I couldn’t say no,” Jenks said.

The proposal by Canadian buddy Seth Scott, a fellow lover of cars and crazy adventures, was for them to drive a decades-old British-made Reliant Robin car from London to the southern tip of Africa — a 14,000-mile (22,500-kilometer) journey through 22 countries — to set a record for the longest trip in a three-wheeled vehicle.

Reliant Robins have cultlike status in the U.K. as humble three-wheelers that, in Jenks’ words, were designed to go to the shops and back in 1970s Britain. They went out of production in the early 2000s but remain loved in British culture, especially after a Reliant appeared as the Trotter brothers’ trusty but battered yellow van in the hugely popular sitcom “Only Fools and Horses.”

Yet you couldn’t find a less suitable vehicle to take thousands of miles through tropical jungles, mountain ranges and deserts down the west side of Africa. And that’s precisely why Jenks went for the absurd plan.

Sheila the three-wheeler

Sheila, the silver three-wheeler — one of the last Reliant Robins to be built — was acquired specifically for the adventure. Jenks and Scott set off in October with a can of fuel and a few essential supplies strapped to Sheila’s small roof, and a large amount of blind hope that they would somehow make it to Cape Town, South Africa, near the bottom of the world.

“No power steering, no air con, and it doesn’t do well up hills or down them. It is the most unsuitable car for probably any journey,” Jenks said in an unkind assessment of Sheila’s abilities. “We made friends with the designer of this car, and he’s scared to take it any more than 20 miles.”

Jenks and Scott ignored all the advice and took Sheila on the epic journey over four-and-a-half months that cost in the region of $40,000 to $50,000, Jenks said. They had help from sponsors and crowd funding, and documented the journey on an Instagram page that pulled in nearly 100,000 followers under the title: “14,000 miles, 3 wheels, 0 common sense.”

Attempted coups and airstrikes

They arrived in Benin during an attempted coup. They skirted through northern Nigeria as the U.S. launched airstrikes on Islamic State targets. They were given a military escort for about 300 miles (480 kilometers) through a region of separatist violence in Cameroon.

“Imagine this car in a military convoy,” Jenks said.

And there were many brushes with traffic-related danger, including when an overtaking bus almost flattened Sheila against a cliff face in Congo.

True to form that Reliants are sometimes not so reliable, there were also countless breakdowns on the punishing roads.

Sheila needed her wheel springs replaced in the first two weeks. The gearbox broke in Ghana, leaving them with only fourth gear. In Cameroon, there were clutch and distributor problems and then the big one: the engine blew up.

Through all the technical problems, the kindness of strangers and the intrepidness of Jenks and Scott kept them going. One man got a new gearbox shipped to Ghana. Reliant enthusiasts in the U.K. helped find a new engine to send to Cameroon.

After one breakdown, people helped load Sheila onto a cattle truck so she could be taken to a garage. Mechanics across the continent screwed, hammered and welded Sheila to keep her together, sometimes shaking their heads at the madness of it all.

Where no Reliant Robin has gone before

But there were also majestic moments, the kind that Jenks and Scott had envisioned to make it all worth it.

Sheila cruised through stunning mountain ranges and vast deserts — where surely no Reliant Robin has gone before. She went on safari, driving alongside galloping giraffes, spotting endangered rhinos, and posing for a picture next to a giant elephant.

More than 120 days after setting off, she rattled into Cape Town last month on an engine that began badly overheating in the Namibian desert and had been touch and go for about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers).

“This is a great underdog story,” said Graeme Hurst, a South African car lover who followed them on Instagram and came to see Sheila. “I see the farcical kind of comical nature of it … but also the sheer admiration. I mean, they have utter tenacity.”

In South Africa, Sheila was put on temporary display in a showroom for high-end cars and was the center of attention ahead of the glittering Porsches and Mercedes, showing off her broken side window, her petrol-stained windshield, her bent tire rims, and her countless dents and scratches.

She will rest now and be given the thorough service she deserves, Jenks said. Eventually, she’ll be driven to Kenya, put on a ship to Turkey, then make one last trip back to the U.K. to find a home at the London Transport Museum.

Jenks said he felt triumphant after reaching Cape Town, but relieved to have survived and finally be out of the tiny two-seater.

“It was like driving a motorized coffin,” he said.

___

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

World

Pope Leo urges Africans to stay and ‘serve your country’ instead of migrating as displacement climbs

Published

10 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

Pope Leo urges Africans to stay and ‘serve your country’ instead of migrating as displacement climbs

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Pope Leo XIV last Friday urged African youth to work toward improving their own countries rather than migrating elsewhere in search of better opportunities.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church directed his remarks to university students at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, during an 11-day apostolic journey in Africa.

“In the face of the understandable tendency to migrate — which may lead one to believe that elsewhere a better future may be more easily found — I invite you, first and foremost, to respond with an ardent desire to serve your country and to apply the knowledge you are acquiring here to the benefit of your fellow citizens,” Leo said.

While displacement in Africa has steadily increased in recent years amid economic and political challenges, Leo said each country’s rising generations should be “committed to society,” reflect their nations’ needs and confront systemic issues at home.

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON: WHAT LEO’S CHOICE OF NAME TELLS US ABOUT THE NEW POPE

Pope Leo XIV speaks as he meets with the community of Bamenda at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda on the fourth day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa April 16, 2026. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)

“Africa, indeed, must be freed from the scourge of corruption. For young people, this awareness must take root from their years of formation,” he said.

“These are the witnesses of wisdom and justice, of which the African continent needs.”

He added that through education and spiritual formation, “you learn to become builders of the future of your respective countries and of a world that is more just and humane.”

POPE LEO SAYS HE’S UNAFRAID OF THE TRUMP ADMIN AFTER PRESIDENT CALLS HIM ‘TERRIBLE’ ON FOREIGN POLICY

Pope Leo XIV delivers a speech during his visit to Central African Catholic University as part of his Africa tour April 17, 2026, in Yaoundé, Cameroon. (Ahmet Emin Donmez/Anadolu)

According to the World Migration Report, most of Africa’s displacement occurs internally within the continent, with 21 million Africans recorded as living in another African country in 2020.

Overseas African migration has also steadily increased, with figures more than doubling between 1990 and 2020.

In 2020, roughly 11 million Africans reportedly migrated to Europe, 5 million to Asia and 3 million to Northern America.

MORNING GLORY: LEO’S LAUNCH

Pope Leo XIV visits Central African Catholic University as part of his Africa tour April 17, 2026, in Yaoundé, Cameroon. (Ahmet Emin Donmez/Anadolu)

The causes of displacement are largely attributed to political conflict, corruption, violence and economic hardship, including widespread poverty.

These factors are particularly pronounced in countries such as Somalia, one of Africa’s largest sources of refugees; Nigeria, which is riddled with natural disasters and economic pressures; and Sudan’s surrounding areas, where civil war, political instability and food insecurity have driven large-scale displacement.

The Pope’s remarks come just days after President Donald Trump criticized Leo on Truth Social, calling him “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy.”

The backlash followed the pontiff’s criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and his appeal for a return to peace.

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Tensions between the two boiled over several days before the Pope said last Saturday that it was “not in my interest at all” to debate the president.

Leo has insisted that his position is focused on bridging divides among nations and promoting peace and reconciliation.

Bonny Chu is a Digital Production Assistant at Fox News Digital.