Clinton, who was 13 when her father became president of the United States, came to Barron’s defence on both Facebook and Twitter. She posted “Barron Trump deserves the chance every child does – to be a kid.”
In the same posts, Clinton also took a swipe at the president saying standing up for children means opposing Trump’s policies if they hurt kids.
Barron Trump deserves the chance every child does-to be a kid. Standing up for every kid also means opposing POTUS policies that hurt kids.
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) January 22, 2017
Barron has been subjected to cyberbullying, particularly since Friday when his dad was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. The most well-known incident of this type of behaviour came from Katie Rich, a writer for Saturday Night Live. In a post made on Inauguration Day, Rich, 33 tweeted Barron would become “the country’s first homeschool shooter.” After a few hours, Rich removed the tweet.
Inquisitr reports although it is unknown whether the writer still has her job, her name has been removed from the list of SNL’s writing credits.
Rich was not the only troll who took to social media to make fun of the 10-year-old for the way he appeared at his father’s inauguration. While some people like Rich saw this as something to laugh about, others found Barron behaved as a normal 10-year-old child would.
Attacking Barron on social media was not confined to the United States. On Inauguration Day, Ashley Csanaday, a writer with Canada’s National Post, tweeted “Maybe Barron is just a closeted Democrat. That or the kid has some serious resting bitch face.” Csanaday removed the tweet Saturday afternoon.
Those such as Rich and Csanaday received significant backlash after their social media postings made fun of a 10-year-old child. In Rich’s case, a change.org petition has been started demanding she be fired from her job at SNL. At the time of this writing, more than 35,000 people have signed the petition.
There was a lot of reaction to Clinton’s social media posts. While most agreed with her that a minor child of a president should be left alone, some of these posts criticized the former First Daughter. While agreeing children of presidents are not fair game for criticism, many people did not like the fact she criticized the new administration as well. One person wrote if she wanted to take a shot at the president she should have done so in a separate post. Another accused Clinton of using Barron as an excuse to make a political point.
Despite the apparent animosity between her parents and Trump, it is not surprising Clinton would come to Barron’s defense. As Ivanka Trump told 20/20 last week, she and Clinton have been friends for years. They remained friends during the campaign and will continue to be friends in the future.