President Trump showed his rare, softer side during a Fox News interview on Friday morning. Asked about how he planned to honor the First Lady and his own late mother for Mother's Day this weekend, the president took a moment to reflect on how much his mother meant to him when he was growing up.
"Well all I can say is, 'Happy Mothers Day,' and I had a great mom," Trump said. He then mused that he may not have been the easiest child to raise, and praised his mom for her unrelenting support. President Trump's mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, passed away in 2000 at age 88.
"I loved my mom and she loved me which is, I must tell you, probably not easy to do," Trump said in jest. "But she was so good to me, she was so good to me. I couldn’t do any wrong which is a big problem; maybe that’s why I ended up the way I ended up I don’t know." The president then shifted from a jovial tone to a more emotional one, reminiscing about his mother and also his father, Fred, who died in 1999.
"I couldn’t do any wrong in her eyes and I had a great father too, great guy, very different types. But my mother was a terrific woman," Trump said. Of his own wife and mother to his 14-year-old son Barron, the president said that the First Lady was a "great mother."
"Melania has been a great mother to Barron, I will tell you that, Barron has been growing up really beautifully and she’s been a great mother to Barron," he said.
Trump was then asked whether he believed his parents would have guessed that he would one day become the president of the United States. Trump joked that any parent would be surprised if their child ended up as the leader of the free world, as the statistical likelihood of such an achievement for any American was very low.
"My mother was somebody that gave me a lot of confidence and she believed in me," Trump said. "So she would say that she wouldn’t be [surprised], but I think everybody would be." The president, with an abnormally soft and emotional tone, then reflected on how lucky he was to grow up with such supportive and strong parents.
"My father was the same. He was a strong guy but he was a good man, very good human being, very good person, and he always had confidence in me ... and in our family," the president said. Fred Trump along with his wife Mary Anne Trump raised five children, including the future president, in New York while building a career in real estate from the ground up.
"We just had confidence and had really, really good parents it’s such an advantage in life. You see so much with the single families and the children growing up without a mother or a father or whatever it may be," President Trump said on Friday morning. "It’s a very tough situation for people; very, very tough situation and if you’re lucky, and there’s a lot of luck involved, if you’re lucky enough to have one great parent or ideally two great parents, what a tremendous advantage it is in life. It’s just a tremendous thing."
"I miss my parents," Trump said solemnly. He also said that he will be with Melania at Camp David for Mother's Day this year, while also continuing to steer the country in this time of pandemic and economic crisis. He ended his early morning phone interview with a Mother's Day message to all the moms in America, and encouragement to stay strong.
"Let me wish all of the mothers out there a very happy Mother’s Day because that’ll be great, and so I’ll give you a little bit of an early Mother's Day," the president said in warm conclusion.