When President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s belongings are swiftly removed from the White House during President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, one thing that will leave with them will almost certainly not be replaced – a White House pet.
Unlike the official residence of the British Prime Minister, there is no “chief mouser” for the Executive Office of the President who remains in office from administration to administration.
That’s because in America, presidents come and go, and their pets always come and go with them. When the Biden administration’s time in office expires on January 20, their one remaining pet — a tabby domestic short hair called Willow after Jill Biden’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania — will depart, leaving the residence empty of feline or canine activity. Of the three Biden-owned German Shepherd dogs, one (Champ) passed away in 2021, and two (Major and Commander) were exiled from the White House after multiple biting incidents that left staff and Secret Service personnel injured.
While President Harry Truman once famously remarked that the only sure way to find a friend in the American capital was to “get a dog,” President-elect Trump has chosen to keep his White House among the 55 percent of American residences that don’t have a canine companion among 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 always been peppered with canine references, usually suggestions that a person he doesn’t like has done something negative “like a dog.”
Sometimes, he’s gone further, such in a 2018 tweet when he called out former staffer turned tell-all book writer Omarosa Manigault Newman following the release of her White House memoir, Unhinged, writing: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”
He also compared Utah’s outgoing senator and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to man’s best friend, suggesting that the ex-Massachusetts governor “choked like a dog” in his general election contest with then-president Barack Obama.
For their parts, Obama and Romney are both known dog lovers, with Obama having owned two Portuguese Water Dogs, Sunny and Bo, during his time in the White House. Romney’s history with dogs is a bit more checkered, with his treatment of his late Irish Setter, Seamus, becoming an issue during his past presidential runs.
Trump has also used dog comparisons for vanquished enemies in the national security realm, such as when he famously claimed that slain ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had “died like a dog” after being chased down by American special forces soldiers — including a military working dog called Conan, in late 2019.
Conan, who was injured during the mission when al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive suicide vest, briefly captured the nation’s attention in the wake of that military victory, and the then-president later welcomed that courageous canine to the White House for a brief ceremony to present Conan with a medal and a plaque, allowing the Belgian Malinois to be handled and pet by 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 fantastic job. We’re very honored to have Conan here,” he said, adding later that Conan (whose gender later became the subject of a spat between the White House and Pentagon) was “very special.”
But aside from hosting Conan’s White House appearance (which at the time was derided by critics as an attempt to distract from his looming impeachment), Trump has rarely been seen in canine company during his time as a 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 record of his life makes clear that Trump is not a dog person. It’s an oddity for an American president, with the U.S. Presidential Pet Museum noting that he’s the only president since Andrew Johnson to not have any kind of animal companion at all.
His late first wife, Ivana Trump, confirmed his distaste for dogs in her memoir Raising Trump, writing that he “was not a dog fan” and recounting how he omplained constantly about excessive barking from her poodle, Chappy.
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 do love your dogs, don’t you?” he said, adding: “I wouldn’t mind having one, honestly, but I don’t have any time.”
Continuing, he asked: “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn? Would that be right?”
”I don’t know. Feels a little phony, phony to me. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you should get a dog,’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s good politically.’ I said, ‘Look, that’s not the relationship I have with my people,’” he said.
Source link https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-white-house-president-pets-cats-dogs-b2665953.html
