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Seth Meyers has offered a theory on why Donald Trump keeps making unsolicited assessments of male Republican candidates’ bodies at midterm rallies.
In recent weeks, the president has been breaking away from his prepared remarks to comment on different candidates’ bodies, like when he said Republican senator Jon Husted’s butt was a “pile of muscle” at a North Carolina rally on Tuesday.
“So we’re learning a lot about how the president deals with the pressure of an intense midterm election,” Meyers said on Thursday’s Late Night episode. “For example, we’re learning that he has a bizarre fixation with men’s physiques, whether it’s the candidates he’s campaigning with or just some random dudes in the crowd.”
A montage played showing Trump remarking on the appearance of different male Republican candidates at various rallies, referring to them as “handsome,” “good looking,” “beautiful” and “strong.”
“This is a sign of how bad things are going for Trump. The only issue he has left to campaign on is, ‘Me likey what I see,’” Meyers continued.
Meyers also played a clip of Trump at a rally in Oklahoma, in which he broke off from his planned remarks to praise two “big, strong, good looking guys” he had seen waiting in the line outside the event.
“Where are they?” Trump asked the crowd. “You can’t miss ’em: big, strong, handsome Oklahoma studs.” He summoned the men onto the stage and said: “These are studs… wow.”
Meyers said Trump was behaving like he was “a blindfolded bachelorette at a strip club,” and then proceeded to mimic Trump, saying: “‘Where are the studs? Someone bring me the studs. I got a purse full of dollars and a hankering for grade A Oklahoma beef. Come to mama, studs!’”
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Meyers theorized that Trump’s recent comments on men’s physiques are because he’s “always valued surface over substance. He doesn’t know or care about the issues. He just knows marketing. He cares about looks. That’s it.”
The host also referred to a recent rally in Youngstown, Ohio, when Trump spoke about Husted’s physique.
Meyers said that Trump could have been talking about issues that affect Ohio voters, like healthcare, but said, “He doesn’t know anything about that stuff, so instead, when he campaigns for Husted, he says stuff like this…”
He played a clip of Trump talking about Husted’s body, saying: “I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete.”
“And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his a**…. And then I examined his a**, and then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline.” Trump brought up Husted’s physique again this week at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, saying that his butt was a “pile of muscle.”
“Why are you so weird?” Meyers responded. “And who goes a**, feet, shoulders, hand, jawline? Buddy, nobody cares if you can bounce a quarter off Jon Husted’s a** because, thanks to inflation, that quarter is f***ing worthless!”
He continued: “Let me get this straight. When the republican senator from Ohio is up at the podium speaking, you’re not listening to a word he’s saying, you’re just closely analyzing the muscles in his a**?”
Meyers compared Trump’s comments to the dialogue of Kim Cattrall’s Sex and the City character Samantha Jones, who often delivered sexually charged comments on the show.
“You sound like Samantha when she’s dating a new male model,” Meyers said, before doing an impression of Cattrall’s character.