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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Arwa Mahdawi

Why is Maga-land so obsessed with Kai Trump turning 18? Do you really need to ask?

A teen girl speaks to reporters while standing next to a man who is Donald Trump
Kai Trump, left, speaks to the media next to her grandfather Donald Trump on board Air Force One on the way to West Palm Beach, Florida, on 13 April 2025. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

Kai Trump, the president’s granddaughter and the eldest of Donald Trump Jr’s five children, has just turned 18. To be clear, I do not have a list of Trump family birthdays on my fridge. But it has been forced upon my consciousness because an awful lot of people in Trumpworld are being weird about it.

Fox News, for example, decided to post both an Instagram message (which got more than 87,000 likes) and a tweet wishing Kai a very happy 18th birthday. Which is a little odd considering that the high school student is not a public figure. Kai, who has a large social media following, did briefly speak at the Republican national convention last year and has posted support for her grandfather, but that doesn’t seem to justify a birthday announcement by a major media network.

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