Donald Trump is returning to the White House. Unlike most in his shoes, a pet is not coming with him

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 temporarily get rid of White House President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, one thing they will hardly be replaced with is a space pet. 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.

This is because in America, presidents come and go, and their puppies come and go with them. When the Biden administration’s term expires on Jan. 20, its latest puppy, a domestic shorthair cat named Willow, named after Jill Biden’s hometown of Willow, will be released. Grove, Pennsylvania, will be gone, leaving the apartment empty of any feline or canine activity. Of the 3 German Shepherd dogs owned by Biden, one (Champ) died in 2021 and two (Major and Commander) were exiled from the White House after multiple biting incidents that injured Secret Service staff and staff. .

While President Harry Truman once famously remarked that the only sure way to find a friend in the American capital was to “get a dog,” President-elect Trump has chosen to keep his White House among the 55 percent of American residences that don’t have a canine companion among them.

The former president-turned-future was never a dog lover, and when he first entered the White House in 2017, he ended decades of incessant banging by four-legged friends in the hallways of the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. Training

In fact, he is the first in more than a hundred years that he 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 called Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former painter-turned-revelator writer, after the publication of his White House memoir, Unhinged, and wrote, “When you give a crazy, whiny bully a break. “, and give him an assignment in the White House, I guess it didn’t work. Good job by General Kelly for temporarily kicking that dog out!

He also compared outgoing Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to man’s most productive friend, suggesting the former Massachusetts governor “stifled like a dog” his general election crusade 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 checkered, and his treatment of his former Irish setter, Seamus, was a factor in his past presidential campaigns.

Trump has also used dog comparisons to refer to defeated enemies in the realm of national security, such as when he claimed that slain ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was “dead as a dog. “After being pursued by U. S. special forces infantrymen, adding a soldier. Running dog named Conan, defeated in 2019.

Conan, who was injured in the project when al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive suicide vest, briefly captured the nation’s attention after that army victory, and the then-president welcomed this brave dog to the White House for a brief scale rite in it. . Provide Conan with a medal and plaque, allowing him to treat and pet the Belgian Malinois via then-Vice President Mike Pence, right 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 did have a habit of hosting the winner of each year’s Westminster Kennel Club dog show at his eponymous skyscraper for publicity, and he has raised money for animal-related charities in the past.

But the public record of his life makes it clear that Trump is no dog man. It’s a rarity for an American president, as the US Presidential Pet Museum claims he is the only president since Andrew Johnson to have an animal partner.

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’s won the lottery of life just because he sees you walk through the door?»

At a 2019 campaign rally, Trump attempted to disguise his obvious doglessness after talking about the “incredible” ability 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 getting one, but I don’t have time. “

Continuing, he asked: “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn? Would that be right?”

”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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