Lara Trump reveals why women should trust Donald Trump — and who she thinks US’ first female president will be
When she was 5 years old, Lara Trump told her mom, “I’m going to be involved in something really big.”
“That’s nice, sweetie,” her mom, Linda, replied.
On January 20, Lara, now 42, will be on the steps of the US Capitol to watch her father-in-law, Donald Trump, take the presidential oath a second time.
She’ll do so as a former co-chair of the RNC and, she hinted to The Post, possibly in a high-profile new role.
“I’m excited to share something that will be very forward-facing and allow me to amplify the accomplishments of the incoming Trump administration in the next couple of weeks,” she explained.
In fact, Lara said she is the embodiment of why women should feel they can trust the incoming president.
“This is a man who cares about women,” Lara told The Post in an exclusive interview. “And I tell you that as a woman who came into this family … from a background where I had no ability to relate to the Trump family — meaning a business family whose name people knew around the world.
“Donald Trump helped me get to where I am today. And he’s a constant champion for women with whom he surrounds himself.”
She pointed out there are “so many great examples of strong women around Donald Trump” — including chief of staff Susie Wiles, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, cabinet picks like Kristi Noem and Linda McMahon, and attorney Alina Habba.
“I think that’s what people who get to know Donald Trump appreciate: He doesn’t care what you look like, he doesn’t care about your religion, he doesn’t care about your gender, he doesn’t care who you love.
“He cares about whether or not you are going to be able to perform a job to your best ability,” Lara said. “It’s something I appreciate as a woman because I never want someone to give me a job because of my gender.”
She believes that the US will see a female president in her lifetime — “I actually believe our first female president will be a Republican” — but that gender can’t be the deciding factor.
“Hillary Clinton tried to tell everyone that they should vote for her because she was a woman: ‘Don’t you want to see a woman as president?'” Lara said. “There are a lot of women I can think of right now who I would consider voting for for president. But the second you break it down and use that as the reason people should vote for you, I think you lose a lot of people.”
Born Lara Lea Yunaska in Wilmington, NC, and raised in Wrightsville Beach, she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from North Carolina State University, followed by a stint at culinary school.
She met Eric, the youngest of Trump’s three kids with his first wife Ivana Trump, after moving to NYC and getting a job as a story coordinator and producer for the TV Show “Inside Edition,” where she worked from 2012 to 2016.
Before they met, “I didn’t know that a guy named Eric Trump even existed,” she said of her knowledge of the Trump family.
The couple, who live in Jupiter, Fla., wed at Mar-a-Lago in November 2014 and are now parents to Luke, 7, and Carolina, 6.
Lara was with the kids, at their home in New York, last July when a would-be assassin shot at Trump during a rally in Butler, Penn.
“About 15 seconds before this happened, my daughter goes, ‘Look, mom, look who’s on TV. It’s Grandpa.’ And I looked up and I didn’t see him standing on stage anymore. Eric was in the other room and he had another TV on with the rally. And he started calling me to come in there and I immediately knew something had happened,” she recalled. “I didn’t want my kids to see something horrific. So I changed the channel.”
Watching alone with Eric, she remembers how her father-in-law “got up and you could see blood on him. And I knew that something was wrong. We started calling people. And honestly, for about 45 minutes to an hour, until we heard directly from him, it was really scary.”
She and Eric weren’t immediately sure what to tell their kids — but Luke and Carolina were going to summer camp the next Monday and she feared them finding out from someone else.
“So Sunday night I had to sit them down and tell them something happened to Grandpa. ‘He’s OK, but he’s got a bandage on his ear,'” Lara said. “I knew they would see him the next week, at the [Republican National] Convention. But it was really tough to tell a four- and a six-year-old that someone had tried to hurt their grandpa.”
She thinks a lot about what her kids are going to hear out in the world, and at school — including fever-pitch conversations about transgender athletes participating in women’s sports and gender-affirming care for minors.
“As a mom, I can tell you it’s something that I consider a lot. My kids are very young, but it starts very early … the way that this creeps into the culture,” she said. “It’s very frightening to think that kids can just show up from school one day and say, ‘I actually think I’m a different gender and I want to take these drugs.’ Drugs that could prevent you from having a family of your own one day. That’s a really scary prospect, I think, to a lot of parents out there. And certainly, this is something that [Donald Trump] cares about.
“Now, look, when you’re 18 and you are an adult and have the ability to make your own decisions, I don’t think anybody really cares,” she added. “We want a happy society.”
Even though she lives in Florida now, Lara said she also thinks a lot about what’s going on with her former home, New York City.
“I used to take the subway all the time. Even, by the way, while I had Secret Service during my father-in-law’s first administration. But I think what’s become so frightening now is … that we have a huge issue with people who are not being punished for committing crimes. Americans just want the right thing to happen. They want to feel safe in their communities. They want to feel safe commuting to work or taking their kids around New York City or wherever it is that they live,” Lara said.
“You go to these beautiful cities like San Francisco and you see the homelessness crisis, the drug crisis, the open air drug use, the way people are literally like defecating on the street corners. And instead of helping these people, you know, [progressive leaders are] just saying, we’ll allow you [to commit crime].”
She knows that not everyone agrees with her, or with her father-in-law — after all, she lost friends during his first administration.
“I don’t think any of us anticipated the backlash,” she admitted. “People who had been friends forever suddenly coming out and saying horrible things about my father-in-law, the family. It was very tough.”
It’s why, she said, her sister- and brother-in-law, Ivanka and Jared Kushner, won’t be part of the Trump administration this time around.
“Jared and Ivanka obviously were very, very much involved during the first term and it was really tough on them. You know, every time we saw them, that was the constant — it was tough on them. It was tough on their family,” Lara said. “I think they actually did some really incredible things, things for which they may never get credit, but they definitely deserve some.”
The lessons the Trump family learned from Donald’s first time in office, added, helped them figure out who to trust — and who is just kissing up.
“You get a sense of who’s around you for the right reasons and who isn’t. [Now] we’re particular with the people we let come into the trust tree.”
I love him being First Buddy
Lara Trump on Elon Musk
One person who’s found his way in is Elon Musk, who seems to have Trump’s ear more than just about anyone else right now.
“Every time I go to Mar-a-Lago, he’s there. And it’s a bit of a joke, but he’s in on the joke,” Lara said. “He’s great. Who wouldn’t want one of the brightest minds of our time in the circle of people doing the right thing for this country? It really seems to be that he wants his legacy to be that he was able to achieve the unachievable. And the great news is we get to reap the benefits of that. So I love him being First Buddy.”
Lara, who also has her own workout clothing line, quit Fox News as a contributor in December 2022 — when Trump announced his decision to run again — and took on the role of co-chair of the Republican party.
She left that job in December amid rumors she would be running for Marco Rubio’s US Senate seat in Florida but recently announced she was not pursuing that.
“There were so many factors that weighed into my decision on the US Senate seat, not the least of which is my young family in Florida,” she told The Post, revealing that she had the backing of the president-elect. “In fact, he’s tried to help push me really in that direction…
“It’s a no for now,” she added, “but not no forever.”
