Donald Trump called out his own supporter on Thursday night during a rally after mistaking him for a protestor. Trump started making fun of the man’s weight and told him he needed to “start exercising.”
“That guy has got a serious weight problem!” Trump yelled at the man. “Go home, start exercising. Get him out of here, please! Got a bigger problem than I do! Got a bigger problem than all of us. Now he goes home and his mom says: ‘What the hell have you just done?’”
Trump seems to have thought he was talking about a protester who had disrupted the rally. But the Associated Press reported:
Wow. Trump mocks a protester for purportedly being overweight.
"That guy has got a serious weight problem. Go home, get some exercise," he says. pic.twitter.com/Nsk1RxvQMf
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 16, 2019
Trump reportedly called the man over the phone the next day but did not offer a single apology.
“President Trump called the supporter he shamed for being overweight at last night’s rally from aboard Air Force One and left him a voicemail, per WH official,” said the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker.
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman said that Trump told the man “he wasn’t talking about him when he fat-shamed someone, and thanked him for support.” Of course, if he wasn’t talking about the man in question, it’s not clear why the president would have called at all. And he could have avoided the whole mess by just not mocking anyone’s weight, which can be offensive to people whether or not they are the specific target of his wrath.
Trump told the man it was the president calling, that he wasn’t talking about him when he fat-shamed someone, and thanked him for support, per Trump aides. https://t.co/YcCz0SU3gN
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 16, 2019
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins expanded on the reporting, noting that he refused to apologize for the remarks.
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