President Donald Trump can’t stop talking about Sen. Jon Husted’s butt.
In speech after speech ahead of the midterm elections, Trump has said he “looked him up and down,” said he “examined his ass” and referred to Husted’s backside as “a pile of muscle.” He’s talked about it so much that ahead of Trump’s Wednesday return to Ohio, Husted said he was hitting the gym, presumably working on his glutes, so as to not “let him down.”
Trump has long had a penchant for complimenting — or disparaging — the physical appearances of his allies and enemies alike. But a new analysis by The Washington Sun shows that Trump has referenced physical appearance almost three times as much in the past year as he did during the same period in the 2016 campaign.
Husted’s shoulders were so strong Trump joked they hurt his hand. Rapper Nicki Minaj has a “hard to miss” and “beautiful ass.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has the “body of a 30-year-old.”
These comments draw huge laughs — and sometimes loud cheers — from the crowds. This kind of talk gets such a reaction he’ll talk about a politician he’s particularly impressed by (like Husted) in places far away from where that politician is campaigning.
At a rally in Greenville, South Carolina, last week, the line that drew perhaps the most reaction during the president’s 90 minute speech was — you guessed it — when he called Husted’s rear end “a pile of muscle.” It’s almost easy to forget what the goal of these rallies is: to help reelect the Republicans who are facing an often tough path to return to office in a political climate that is not favorable to their party.
The data clearly shows that Trump’s seeming uptick in body talk isn’t just in our heads. To do our analysis, we took a deep dive into over 4,600 transcripts of the president’s rallies and events, compiled by Roll Call’s Factbase. We pulled out appearance-related comments by looking for certain keywords, starting with the basics, like “beautiful,” “handsome” or “pig.” The list grew as we familiarized ourselves with the president’s unconventional vocabulary.
To produce our final estimates, we reviewed thousands (and thousands) of these sentences to see which actually referred to someone’s appearance. We excluded instances where he wasn’t really evaluating that person’s attractiveness, such as clothing comments, the sarcastic nickname “Beautiful Hillary” or discussions of the physiques of transgender athletes.
It was then extremely apparent, especially given his string of rallies and public appearances leading up to Election Day, that the president is cruising toward an all-time record for such remarks this month, even after adjusting for the sheer amount of time Trump has spoken in public leading up to the midterms.
“It’s no secret that President Trump has always had an appreciation for the big and beautiful, Chris Christie excepted,” a MAGA strategist told The Sun. The strategist said the president’s focus is not just well received in real life, but also online, especially for Republicans who need some levity before what’s expected to be a bruising midterm election.
“Only Trump could compliment a man’s ass at a rally and somehow come out of it looking like the most confident guy in the room,” they added.
Trump has always freely dispensed physical evaluations of other people — think of his “beautiful” former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, or Tom Homan’s “central casting” looks. One longtime Trump friend told The Sun that they didn’t “recall him being fixated on the subject,” as he is now, though looks and aesthetics have always been central to him. To that point, we’ve found that the tenor of his comments has evolved several times.
His previous high-water mark in the appearance index, around the 2024 campaign and its aftermath, was driven in part by a heavy rotation of stock insults — you may recall lines about California Sen. Adam Schiff’s “pencil-neck” and Christie’s weight.
But his latest surge seems to come from a more generous place. Compliments referring to his political allies as “handsome” and “good-looking” have lifted his apparent appearance obsession to new heights.
He also comments on men’s appearance far more often than he does on women’s — especially when you exclude formalities such as “and his beautiful wife” or references to “beautiful” victims of alleged crimes.
David Hamermesh, an emeritus professor at the University of Texas at Austin who wrote an entire book on the economics of physical attractiveness, told The Sun that humans constantly evaluate the attractiveness of the people we meet. The difference when it comes to Trump is the extent to which he makes those opinions known.
The tone change, however, is a good thing, Hamermesh said.
“He’s at least saying nice things about good-looking people,” he said. “He’s not insulting people for a change.”
But, he added: “The president shouldn’t be doing this. It has nothing to do with the job.”
The body-comment mania shows no signs of stopping, and if anything, seems to be spreading.
Not everyone is getting the Husted treatment, however. During a Tuesday night rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, when attempting to explain his prior comments about Husted, Trump said that the Ohio senator’s polling numbers had gone up by 12 points following his remarks.
“Maybe I should do that with Ken Paxton,” Trump joked. “But I don’t think your body is going to qualify.”
