The Barron Trump College Rumor That Won't Die
For those of you blessed enough to not be part of the rarified population of people who affirmatively signed themselves up to receive Google Alerts containing all the latest news about Barron Trump, you may have missed that there have been rumors flying around for weeks now about the real source of his father's animus toward Harvard University. In fact, for almost as long as the administration has been feuding with Harvard, some form of the dumb rumor has persisted: that this is all because Barron couldn't get into the school, and further, perhaps because Donald couldn't either.
The source, to the extent that there is one, was social media: In mid-April, some tweets claiming that Barron Trump was rejected from Harvard as well as Columbia and Stanford went viral. Though some of these posts received millions of views, none of them appeared to offer any semblance of convincing proof that Barron, who recently finished his first year at New York University, actually applied to these schools. A senator, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, didn't help matters when he posted, around this time: 'Can't help but wonder how many Trumps got rejected by Harvard.' Journalist Michael Wolff also shared a video about how it had become a common joke around the White House that one thing the universities Trump was targeting had in common was that Barron didn't get into them.
Despite the flimsiness of this chatter, it clearly bothered the Trump family enough that Melania Trump's office issued a rare statement refuting the rumors—and considering how checked out Melania seems when it comes to performing the duties of first lady, this is saying something. 'Barron did not apply to Harvard, and any assertion that he, or that anyone on his behalf, applied is completely false,' Nick Clemens, a spokesman for the first lady, said in a statement in late May.
But that wasn't the end of it. This week, Donald Trump himself addressed the rumors, and probably amplified them. He didn't step in to defend his son's honor, though (in the twisted logic where claiming that someone didn't apply to Harvard counts as defending their honor). Instead, he spoke out on his own behalf, seemingly in response to Wolff appearing on a podcast after Melania released her statement and mentioning that Trump himself didn't get into Harvard. Trump wrote on Truth Social, 'Michael Wolff, a Third Rate Reporter, who is laughed at even by the scoundrels of the Fake News, recently stated that the only reason I'm 'beating up' on Harvard, is because I applied there, and didn't get in. That story is totally FALSE, I never applied to Harvard.' It probably would have been smarter to stay quiet—you don't have to be a PR professional to realize that Trump allowing himself to be baited by this rumor is going to result in more people hearing it than just allowing it to die might have. But not engaging has never been the president's strong suit.
The idea that Trump didn't get into Harvard all those years ago and is now exacting revenge because of it isn't at all implausible—we all know him to be a very petty man. The notion that he's seeking retribution for the university rejecting his son does feel slightly harder to buy, though, just because—as evidenced by what rumors Trump even felt it was important for him to personally speak to—when has he ever shown himself to be that personally protective of his children? But I think this whole thing is dumb for a much simpler reason. It's not just Harvard, or just elite schools, that Trump has set out to punish: Really, it's all American institutions. In some ways, one wishes that Trump would be so predictable or logical as to aim his ire at particular targets. Maybe he is being driven by revenge on some level, but if so, it seems like he wants revenge on everything and everyone who's ever been guilty of not taking him seriously, and that includes most of the country. 'Trump is punishing Harvard because he's mad he didn't get in' isn't inconceivable, but it feels, sadly like so many lines of critique right now, completely beside the point.
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