If you’re a Republican running for Senate, please wear something that allows the president to assess your hindquarters. You may have prepared remarks about manufacturing and the cost of groceries, but those are preliminary materials. Donald Trump will determine your fitness for office by looking at the seat of your pants.
At his October 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, Trump was supposed to be helping Senator Jon Husted win an election. Instead, he explained how learning about Husted’s college football career had prompted him to conduct what I can only describe as a county-fair inspection.
“I don’t do this with men very often,” Trump began, which is a remarkable opening for an endorsement. Normally, somewhere in that sentence, you’d hope to encounter support their legislation.
“I started examining his body,” he continued, before offering the American electorate this vital finding: “I looked at his ass.”
Imagine being Husted’s campaign manager. You have spent weeks arranging this appearance. You have coordinated security, lighting, transportation, and a backdrop that communicates strength without accidentally spelling anything unfortunate. Your candidate has practiced smiling while the president talks.
Now you’re standing beside a speaker the size of a refrigerator, listening to the leader of the free world review Jon’s buttocks, and realizing there is no communications degree that prepares you for this. Somewhere on your laptop is a press release that begins, President Trump praised Senator Husted’s record. You’re going to need to be more specific about which record.
Trump also inspected Husted’s hands and later returned to his face, announcing, “Look at that jawline.”
At this point, I would have been concerned about receiving a blue ribbon and being loaded into a trailer. There are people who spend their entire political careers trying to earn a presidential endorsement. Husted received one with the unsettling possibility that the president might ask somebody to check his teeth.
Picture the campaign volunteers making calls the next morning. They have a script, a list of undecided voters, and absolutely no instructions for the question, Has the president inspected Sherrod Brown’s ass, or is this a one-sided study?
It would be unfair to reach a conclusion without examining both candidates. We have standards.
The truly magnificent part is that, at the same rally, Trump turned his attention to an actual professional athlete and promptly lost interest in athletic ability. Discussing Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham, he suggested that her looks would attract spectators, saying she could help a team “not to help you with points, but to help you with attendance.”
So let me get this straight. The man applying for a job that involves sitting in the Senate gets evaluated like a prospective linebacker. The woman who actually plays professional basketball gets evaluated like a promotional balloon outside a car dealership.
I’m beginning to understand why personnel decisions take so long in this administration. Everybody keeps being measured for the wrong job. Somewhere, a nuclear physicist is waiting to hear whether her hair has enough volume to oversee the reactor.
Cunningham could spend years training, studying opponents, and developing her game, only to discover that the president’s principal contribution to women’s sports is the suggestion that men might enjoy looking at the women. An insight previously available from every unpleasant uncle who has ever been asked to leave a barbecue.
Trump then complained that calling a woman beautiful could end a politician’s career.
I admire his enduring faith that a consequence might still be approaching. He talks about the end of his political career like a man who has survived fourteen house fires but worries that the toaster warranty has expired. What I particularly enjoy is imagining Husted trying to get the evening back on track.
He came to discuss Ohio. Unfortunately, Ohio has been temporarily displaced by the presidential discovery that he has a face, hands, and a backside. All three have survived vetting.
The campaign can still salvage this. Put the endorsement on a mailer. Give the voters something concrete.
Jon Husted: inspected from several angles.
And if you’re another Republican hoping for Trump’s support, arrive prepared. Bring your résumé, practice your speech, and pin your name to your jacket.
If the president starts walking slowly around you, ask whether you’re running for Senate or whether somebody has entered you in the fair.
Either way, do not let them put a price on your ear.
so bizarre... comments on how he would like to have sex with his daughter... ogles over male professional wrestlers and MMA fighters, makes fun of Ken Paxton's looks, clothing, insulted the looks of virtually every woman who ran against him either in republican primaries or for the presidency... describes the looks of women who like him (hard to believe that there are any) in terms so lurid the only thing missing is a bit of drool coming out of the corner of his mouth... claims he did not rape a woman because "she was not his type"... not because rape is immoral, horrendous, and a federal crime, but because she is not his type.... yet people still stand up for this guy...laugh at his insults, even when they are the targets (witness the most recent remark where he claimed he could say any stupid thing and they could applaud...which they did). if farm animals were this stupid, you would not need fences and electric wire... they would just follow you into the slaughter house. nothing at all surprising any more