{"id":20355,"date":"2026-07-28T23:30:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T18:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20355"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:30:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T18:30:30","slug":"trump-vows-high-civilian-honor-for-lifeguard-who-saved-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20355","title":{"rendered":"Trump Vows &#8216;High Civilian Honor&#8217; for Lifeguard Who Saved Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5746187\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5746187\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5746187\" src=\"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lifeguard.jpg\" alt=\"Lifeguard saves boy\" width=\"1250\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lifeguard.jpg 1250w, https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lifeguard-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lifeguard-1200x691.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lifeguard-768x442.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1250px) 100vw, 1250px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5746187\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(SantaCruzNow\/Instagram)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> vowed on Tuesday to give a \u201chigh civilian honor\u201d to a lifeguard seen saving the life of a young boy in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tag\/viral-video\/\">viral video<\/a> \u2014 after his son, <strong>Eric Trump<\/strong>, requested he do so.<\/p>\n<p>Video of the pulse-pounding rescue showed the 16-year-old lifeguard never losing his grip on the child as he battled the relentless surf at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz, California, over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Beachgoer <strong>Scott Vander Dussen<\/strong> shot footage of the save and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DbPB4XHt7da\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">posted<\/a> it to his SantaCruzNow Instagram page on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The video spread like wildfire on social media, quickly garnering millions of views.<\/p>\n<p>One of those viewers was Eric Trump, who shared the video on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGive this 16-year-old lifeguard the highest civilian honor,\u201d Eric Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EricTrump\/status\/2081834610757927248\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">posted on X<\/a> along with the video. \u201cThis is truly the best of America! Well done!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, President Trump posted a screengrab of Eric\u2019s tweet on <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116998688330805629\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his Truth Social account<\/a>, and appeared to concur with his son\u2019s wish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to bring this heroic young man, and his family, into the White House with, perhaps, the boy he saved, to give him a High Civilian Honor. Very brave, he deserves it!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lifeguard has not been identified, but a woman claiming to be his mother posted on social media that his name is Ryder, according <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/heroic-16-year-old-lifeguard-rescues-child-monster-surf-heart-stopping-video\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to Fox News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s post came after a pair of closed-press meetings, first with Ukrainian President <strong>Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/tv\/fox-news-crew-notes-trump-was-irked-by-netanyahu-ahead-of-oval-office-sit-down\/\">then Israeli Prime Minister<\/a> <strong>Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong>, who are both in town <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/lindsey-liked-war-trump-notes-grahams-penchant-for-conflict-during-fox-news-interview\/\">for the funeral<\/a> of Senator <strong>Lindsey Graham<\/strong> (R-SC).<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(SantaCruzNow\/Instagram) President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to give a \u201chigh civilian honor\u201d to a lifeguard seen saving the life of a young boy in a viral video \u2014 after his son, Eric Trump, requested he do so. Video of the pulse-pounding rescue showed the 16-year-old lifeguard never losing his grip on the child as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lifeguard.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}