Lara Trump praises Dubai for culture, elegance and safety
- Last updated: January 10, 2026 | 21:35 ..
In a fireside chat on the second day of the 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026, Lara Trump, political figure, media personality and artist, praised Dubai for combining culture, elegance, and safety, noting that the city serves as a key attraction of westerners to the Middle East.
“Dubai is the hub of the world in so many respects,” Lara Trump, host of My View with Lara Trump on Fox News, told the audience at the summit in Dubai, which brings together more than 15,000 content creators from across the globe and over 500 expert speakers with a collective following of 3.5 billion.
Lara Trump said that Dubai has made Americans and Westerners feel much more welcome in the Middle East.
Noting the rapid pace of UAE’s development, Lara Trump said the country serves as a model for the rest of the Middle East to follow.
In her chat with Mina Al Oraibi, the editor-in-chief of the National, Lara Trump spoke about her personal experience being part of the Trump family, benefits and risks of the digital media scene, and the impact of tech advancement on legacy media.
The mom of two said social media has been providing alternative forms of information to audiences amid the diminishing public trust in legacy media, noting that hosting her own podcast ‘The Right View’ helped her engage with broader audiences directly.
“Legacy media, in the United States at least, hasn’t always been completely truthful. There’s always been a slant and an opinion to so much of what has been presented,” noted Lara Trump, urging journalists to be transparent with their journalism and to reveal the factors that potentially interfere with their objectivity.
While social media made people across the world more connected, Lara Trump warned of potential dangers of the rise of deepfakes and misinformation in the age of artificial intelligence.
She called for global regulation of AI and social media to protect children from the risks of online spaces, praising Australia and France’s moves to restrict social media access for minors. She also warned of the spread of disinformation ahead of the US midterm elections in November.
Lara Trump said that amid a fragmented media landscape, shaped by echo chambers, it is important to remember that people have far more in common than what divides them.
Therefore, during her role as co-chair of the Republican National Committee for Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign, she said she focused on reaching audiences that disagreed with the party.
“I do think that we would all be better served, especially in the US, to tune into what somebody else might have to say, who we know does not agree with us, and engage with people who have a differing viewpoint,” said Lara Trump.
She urged people to broaden their sources of news from legacy media to independent journalists rather than relying on a single outlet.
While acknowledging the risks of misinformation and unverified reporting, she believes broad media consumption and cautious openness to technologies like generative AI are necessary in an evolving, though sometimes unsettling, information landscape.
Lara Trump narrated her experience being the subject of online attacks when her father-in-law, Donald Trump, announced he is running for president in 2022.
“It was pretty immediate that things went from us being a name with which people would want to associate themselves, to being persona non grata,” said Lara Trump, noting that despite the challenges at first, she now welcomes criticism as a sign of impact.
“You realise that the people whose opinions matter most are the people who actually know you and everything else is just noise,” she said.
She praised the US President Donald Trump as “one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life” and “a great man who loves his family, loves his grandkids, and spoils them with candy.”
The 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026, organised by the UAE Government Media Office, is taking place from Jan.9 to 11, 2026 at Jumeirah Emirates Towers, DIFC and the Museum of the Future, under the theme “Content for Good.”