President-elect’s status as a pet-free president makes him an outlier among American chief executives
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When President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden’s belongings are temporarily removed from the White House following President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, something that will almost effectively abandon them probably won’t be replaced: a White House mascot.
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 the United States presidents come and go, and their puppies come and go with them. When the Biden administration’s term expires on Jan. 20, its last puppy, a domestic shorthair cat named Willow, after Jill Biden’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, will leave, 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 personnel and corps workers.
While President Harry Truman once remarked that the only sure way to locate a friend in the U. S. capital is to “get a dog,” President-elect Trump opted to keep his White House among the 55% of U. S. apartments that 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’s the first in more than 100 years to not have some type of pet as 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 current Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to man’s most productive friend, suggesting that 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 point to defeated enemies in the realm of national security, for example when he claimed that the slain leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had “died like a dog” after being hunted by the United States. Special forces infantrymen: adding an army man. Working dog named Conan, expired in 2019.
Conan, who was injured in the project when al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive suicide vest, briefly captured the nation’s attention following that army victory, and the then-president welcomed this brave dog to the White House for a brief rite of call in it. . Providing Conan with a medal and plaque, which will allow him to treat and pet the Belgian Malinois through 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 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 records of his life make clear that Trump is no dogman. This is a rarity for a US president, and the US Presidential Pet Museum notes that he is the only president since Andrew Johnson not to have an animal companion in his home. 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 really got why he didn’t like dogs, writing: “How can you not love a dog that acts like he’s won the lottery for 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. “
Continuing, he asked: “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn? Would that be right?”
“I don’t know. It’s a little complicated for me. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you deserve to have a dog,’ ‘Why?’ “It’s politically savvy. I said, ‘Look, these aren’t the dates I go on with my other friends,'” he said.
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