The fact that the president-elect is a pet-free president makes him an exception among American business leaders.
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When President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s belongings are temporarily disposed of at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, one thing they almost won’t be replaced with is a space mascot. White House.
Unlike the British prime minister’s official apartment, there is no “chief mouse” for the president’s executive, which remains from management to management.
That’s because in America, presidents come and go, and their pets always come and go with them. When the Biden administration’s time in office expires on January 20, their one remaining pet — a tabby domestic short hair called Willow after Jill Biden’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania — will depart, leaving the residence empty of feline or canine activity. Of the three Biden-owned German Shepherd dogs, one (Champ) passed away in 2021, and two (Major and Commander) were exiled from the White House after multiple biting incidents that left staff and Secret Service personnel injured.
While President Harry Truman once remarked that the only sure way to reach a friend in the U. S. capital is to “get a dog,” President-elect Trump opted to keep his White House among the top 55 percent of American apartments. who don’t have one. have a dog partner between them.
The former turned future president has never been a dog lover, and when he first entered the White House in 2017 that brought to an end decades of uninterrupted pitter-patter of four-legged furry friends around the hallways of the West Wing and the Executive Mansion.
In fact, he is the first in more than a hundred years who does not have a puppy by his side.
Trump’s rhetoric has been peppered with references to dogs, and he regularly drops hints that someone he doesn’t like has done something negative “like a dog. “
Sometimes he went further, as in a 2018 tweet when he criticized former staffer-turned-teller Omarosa Manigault Newman after the publication of her White House memoir, Unhinged, writing: “When you give a bully a break crazy and crying. ” and give him an assignment in the White House, I guess it didn’t work out. Good job to General Kelly for temporarily firing this dog!
He also compared Utah’s outgoing senator and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to man’s best friend, suggesting that the ex-Massachusetts governor “choked like a dog” in his general election contest with then-president Barack Obama.
For their part, Obama and Romney are dog lovers; Obama had two Portuguese water dogs, Sunny and Bo, during his tenure in the White House. Romney’s history with dogs is a little more turbulent, with the remedy being his Irish past. point guard Seamus, becoming a factor in his past presidential campaigns.
Trump has also used dog comparisons for vanquished enemies in the national security realm, such as when he famously claimed that slain ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had “died like a dog” after being chased down by American special forces soldiers — including a military working dog called Conan, in late 2019.
Conan, who was injured during the mission when al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive suicide vest, briefly captured the nation’s attention in the wake of that military victory, and the then-president later welcomed that courageous canine to the White House for a brief ceremony to present Conan with a medal and a plaque, allowing the Belgian Malinois to be handled and pet by then-Vice President Mike Pence just outside the Oval Office.
Trump, always attuned to the importance of celebrity status, told reporters at the time that Conan was “right now probably the world’s most famous dog.”
“Conan did a job. We are very revered for having Conan here,” he said, later adding that Conan (whose gender was later the subject of dispute between the White House and the Pentagon) was “very special. “
But aside from Conan’s White House appearance (which, at the time, was derided by critics as an attempt to distract from his impending impeachment), Trump was rarely noticed over the course of his tenure as political figure.
He used to host the winner of the Westminster Kennel Club’s dog show of the year at his eponymous skyscraper for exhibition purposes, and has raised cash for animal-related charities in the past.
But the public record of his life makes clear that Trump is not a dog person. It’s an oddity for an American president, with the U.S. Presidential Pet Museum noting that he’s the only president since Andrew Johnson to not have any kind of animal companion at all.
His late first wife, Ivana Trump, showed her distaste for dogs in her memoir Raising Trump, writing that he was “not a dog fan” and recounting how he constantly complained about the exaggerated barking of his poodle, Chappy. Array.
She revealed that she never understood why she didn’t like dogs, writing: “How can you not love a dog who acts like he won the lottery of life just because he sees you walk through the door?”
At a 2019 campaign rally, Trump attempted to explain away his glaring doglessness after discussing the “unbelievable” skill with which the German Shepherd can sniff out drugs along the US-Mexico border.
“You love your dogs, don’t you? ” he said, adding, “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having one, but I don’t have time. ” »
He continued and asked, “How would I see myself walking a dog on the White House lawn? Could it be true?”
”I don’t know. Feels a little phony, phony to me. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you should get a dog,’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s good politically.’ I said, ‘Look, that’s not the relationship I have with my people,’” he said.
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