Clinton ‘protective’ of Trump’s son Barron

Chelsea Clinton feels “incredibly protective” of Donald Trump’s youngest son Barron, 12, she told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as she admitted she was still bewildered by criticismofher appearancewhen her father took up office in the White House.

Ms Clinton said she knew as a child that the criticism she faced “was wrong”, adding that she “could not understand” how adults found it acceptable to “bully” a child.

Ms Clinton, who was 12 when her father Bill became president, still regularly receives a barrage of abuse on Twitter, but says she hopes her calm responses encourage her attackers to consider their behaviour.

“I feel incredibly protective of Barron Trump,” she said. “I disagree with his father on almost everything, but he is a child and he deserves a childhood. People have made fun, bullied him, for his appearance and for being more private in the public domain.”

She said that TV chat show hosts had joked that her family would move into the White 0 Chelsea Clinton still receives abuse on Twitter

House with their cat “and the family dog – which meant me”.

But she claimed that the experience had made her more resilient to deal with social media trolls.

She said: “I’m grateful that I encountered the viciousness that badly characterises social media in my real life as a kid. I won’t say it wasn’t unaffecting. It definitely would hurt at times. [I would think] why are these older, generally white men picking on a kid? That’s ludicrous, what’s wrong with them? I’m 12 and I know that’s not right. That’s about something that is fundamentally awry with those people. [On social media] you have to take criticism from serious people.”