Updated October 22, 2026, 3:27 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump can’t help but marvel at Sen. Jon Husted’s butt.
His exaltation began Oct. 12 at a midterm campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, as the president assessed the 59-year-old Ohio Republican’s physique — and since then, the president has been telling his supporters about Husted’s body, particularly his “ass.”
During three separate campaign speeches in the final stretch before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, Trump told the same story about evaluating Husted’s figure after NFL coach Jon Gruden informed the president that Husted had played college football with Gruden at the University of Dayton in the 1980s.
“I don’t do this very often with men,” Trump said when first mentioned in Ohio. “I started looking at his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I looked up and down. I looked at his butt. And then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these claws.”
Although presented as a joke, the comment continues a long — sometimes confusing — history of the president publicly making remarks about the appearance of men he finds strong, masculine or “straight out of central casting,” both in athletics and politics. It comes as Trump seeks to bolster Husted in the midterms, with most polls showing the Republican incumbent trailing his Democratic challenger, former Sen. Sherrod Brown.
“I looked at his butt, and then I looked at his shoulders,” Trump said at an Oct. 17 campaign rally in Highland Heights, Kentucky. “I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jaw. I was studying. You would be very unhappy if you had an argument with him in a bar one day.”
He showed Husted’s butt again in Greenville, North Carolina on October 20.
“I looked at his butt, then his legs,” Trump said. “I said his ass, it’s like a bunch of muscle.”
‘Central Casting’: Trump’s History of Praising ‘Handsome’ Men
Representatives for Husted’s Senate office and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment when asked for the senator’s reaction to Trump’s remarks.
Even Vice President JD Vance noticed Trump’s obsession with Husted’s rear end. “What could I say about Jon Husted that Donald J. Trump hasn’t already said?” Vance said at a campaign event in Sharonville, Ohio, on Oct. 21. “Don’t worry. I’m not talking about Jon Husted’s ass.”
Trump has long been openly fascinated by “good genes” and the bloodlines that explain human vitality. Whether someone is telegenic and looks the part has factored into Trump’s Cabinet picks and other White House hires.
And while Husted’s body has been getting Trump’s attention lately, the senator is far from the only man — nor the only midterm candidate — whose physique Trump has praised.
Just minutes into his Oct. 16 rally for Republican Rep. Mike Collins in Dalton, Ga., Trump remarked that the Republican candidate for Georgia Senate was better-looking than his opponent, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
“Someone said he was a handsome man,” Trump said of Ossoff. “I don’t think he’s a handsome man. In fact, I think Mike Collins is a handsome man. And he’s quite a man. He’s quite a man. I’m not sure about Ossoff.”
He turned to Rick Jackson, the Georgia Republican candidate for governor.
“I actually think Rick Jackson is a very handsome, distinguished, handsome man. But it doesn’t matter,” Trump said.
Trump then turned his attention back to Collins.
“He takes center stage,” Trump said of the congressman. “Get up, watch this. If I’m picking a movie for a senator, I like white hair, I like his big, strong build. A big, strong guy. That’s what I want.”
Later in the same speech, Trump spotted Greg Dolezal, a Republican state senator from Georgia, running for lieutenant governor.
“Oh, he’s a nice guy,” Trump said. “You don’t have the right to say that about women or men anymore. It’s the end of your political career. But he’s a good-looking guy.”
Trump’s Jaxon Dart and Arnold Palmer moments
Two days earlier, on the campaign trail, Trump praised Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy’s appearance as he rallied supporters Oct. 14 in Kalispell, Montana.
“I wish Tim didn’t look so good,” Trump said. “You know, he’s a very handsome guy. I don’t like handsome guys. I’ve never liked handsome men.”
While speaking at an Oct. 1 rally in Durant, Oklahoma, the president asked three male supporters he had spotted on television to join him on stage.
“Where are they? You can’t miss a big, strong, handsome stud from Oklahoma (sic),” the president said. “Oh, there they are. Look at these three guys. They’re studs.”
Yet the president’s flattery of good-looking men didn’t start during his midterm blitz.
Trump’s appreciation of the male body was memorably displayed in May when the president was joined on stage by New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart during a speech in Suffern, New York.
“He’s a beautiful guy, he’s got legs like tree trunks,” Trump said of Dart.
Perhaps Trump’s most pointed remarks about the male anatomy — which bordered on being explicit — were made during the 2024 presidential election while discussing golf legend Arnold Palmer.
“Arnold Palmer was a man,” Trump told a crowd in Pennsylvania. He then went where no other president has gone before: “I refused to say it, but when – when he took a shower with the other men, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God. This is incredible.'”
Contact Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
Gn headline
