Washington: US President Donald Trump said he had not decided whether to attend his son Donald Trump Jr’s wedding, which will reportedly take place this weekend – a long weekend in the US – in the Bahamas.
“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small little private affair,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday (US time), when asked if he would attend the ceremony.
“I’m going to try and make it. I’m in the midst – I said, ‘You know, this is not good timing for me’. I have a thing called Iran and other things.”
Trump asserted he would be criticised by the media if he went to the wedding amid the war with Iran – though there is a ceasefire – and also if he stayed away.
“That’s one I can’t win on. If I do attend, I get killed, if I don’t attend, I get killed – by the fake news, of course, I’m talking about,” he said.
“But he [Trump Jr] has a got a very – a person who I’ve known for a long time. And hopefully, they’re going to have a great marriage.”
The New York Post’s Page Six section reported this week that Trump Jr would wed his partner Bettina Anderson over the Memorial Day long weekend, which runs from Saturday to Monday, on a private island in the Bahamas.
Such a trip would be logistically difficult and expensive for a sitting president, given the security requirements. However, he routinely leaves Washington to spend weekends at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, or his private golf club in New Jersey.
Trump Jr, 48, runs the family business with his brother Eric, and was active in his father’s political campaigns. He split from his previous wife Vanessa in 2018 after 13 years of marriage; they have five children.
He later became engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host who was once married to California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. She became a Republican and fundraised for Donald Trump, but she and Trump Jr separated in 2024. President Trump appointed her US ambassador to Greece.
It was in August 2024 that Trump Jr was first photographed with Anderson, a socialite and model, “canoodling” at a restaurant in Florida’s Palm Beach.
He reportedly proposed to the 39-year-old in December while they were at Camp David, the president’s official retreat in Maryland, which has hosted major summits during previous presidencies.
As of March, Vanessa Trump was reported to be still dating American golfing legend Tiger Woods, who has returned to the US after attending an overseas rehabilitation program following a DUI arrest.
She revealed this week that she had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone a medical “procedure”.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.