Barron Trump Wasn’t Even There But Sparks Topic Of Preteen Confusion For Folks Online

Barron Trump was not scheduled to attend the State of the Union Adress with his parents, so you can imagine the surprise for some folks when they believed they spotted Barron as the camera panned the event. Some of the people at home watching Trump deliver his speech could have sworn the boy in the suit seated next to Melania was indeed Barron Trump.

As Ben McLeay from Pedestrian suggests — if you put a kid in a suit below the age of 15 it is hard for him to tell the difference from one kid to the other and he is apparently not alone in his thoughts. There were plenty of other folks who were blindsided by the young man dressed in a fashion very similar to how Barron Trump is dressed for public events.

The lad’s name is Preston Sharp and he is just about the same age as Barron Trump, who will turn 12 on March 20, spending his birthday as part of the First Family of the nation for a second year. At Tuesday night’s event 12-year-old Preston was sporting a suit and tie in a Barron-like fashion with a crisp white shirt.

Preston was sitting with Melania Trump and her other special guests who are ordinary citizens that have done extraordinary things throughout the year. Preston worked hard to make sure the graves of U.S. veterans did not go without American flags and flowers. Since 2015, his hard work has arranged for more than 40,000 graves to be decorated.

Still, Preston’s looks, which are similar to Barron’s at first glance, did confuse some folks at home watching Trump’s first State of the Union Address. People commented on the fact that they were blindsided at first, as seen in the few examples from social media below. The comments started to mount about the First Family having Barron Trump’s doppelganger standing in for him

Is it just me or is that not Barron Trump? #SOTU

— Aleydis (@staleydis) January 31, 2018

Breaking: Kid Next To Melania Not Barron #SOTU

— Onion Politics (@OnionPolitics) January 31, 2018

I didn't think that was him. I was wondering was he even there.

— L-Bo (@23mlewis) January 31, 2018

At first I thought that kid ("Preston"?) on the #SOTU was Barron Trump and was like, "Thank goodness, finally Barron got a decent haircut and started smiling"

…maybe next time.

— Keith Bartholomew (@ktbartholomew) January 31, 2018

Once the news was out that it wasn’t Barron that folks were seeing, then the jokes surfaced with some suggesting the Trump administration has “recast” Barron Trump for the “second season” of the Washington show. According to the International Business Times, the Trump’s were “ribbed” for having “recast” Barron for this event. One Twitter user wrote, “I am not entirely certain, but I think the White House has recast the role of Barron Trump for the second season.”

Then there were some digs taken at the President with another Twitter user suggesting, “At first glance, I couldn’t tell whether or not this was Barron Trump, which I guess means me and the president have something in common.”

Barron Trump was not at the event, and his non-appearance was announced a few days in advance. Why the Trump pre-teen opted out of the State of the Union Address is not known, but at 11, going on 12-years-old, most parents would agree sitting through a 90-minute speech isn’t a hard-to-pass-up offer for kids in that age group. That is especially true if the one who is doing the talking is their parent.