A young boy looked visibly uncomfortable as President Donald Trump, 79, bragged to him directly about his work in keeping men out of women’s sports.
The president was surrounded by children during his Oval Office proclamation signing on Tuesday to restore the Presidential Fitness Test in schools nationwide when he asked them what sports they played.
One boy to the president’s right, whom Trump called a “big guy,” said he was playing football but wants to pursue powerlifting next year.
“Whoa,” Trump replied. “And you’ll never compete against women in powerlifting.”
The boy responded affirmatively before the president belabored the point with a bizarre anecdote.
“Did you see that they had a man powerlifter and he decided to go the opposite direction?” Trump asked the child. “He took a record that stood for 18 years—he beat it by 119 pounds."
“For 18 years it stood, this guy came and—he was a failed powerlifter, but he went on the other side, and he decided that he wanted to go into women’s sports, and he broke the record by 118 pounds,” the president added.
“Do you think that’s fair?” he asked MAGA golfer Bryson DeChambeau before returning to the boy and patting him on the shoulder. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about you.”
It’s unclear who the president is referring to, as no transgender powerlifter appears to have broken an 18-year-old record as he claims.
“Are you a strong person?” Trump asked the child. “Do you think you can take me in a fight?”
The boy appeared uncomfortable and didn’t answer as others in the room laughed, before Trump said something unintelligible to DeChambeau and added, “That would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
The president veered wildly off course throughout the event intended to focus on National Youth Sports and Fitness Month.
Without any regard for the audience of kids around him, Trump ranted about his war on Iran, nuclear weapons, and his election lies.
“These are sick people, and we’re not going to let lunatics have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “The power of a nuclear weapon is something I don’t even want to talk about. It’s not going to happen. And we have beaten them badly.”
The president also described in graphic detail protesters being killed in Iran.
“So you could have 200,000 people protesting and have five or six sick people with guns, and when they start shooting them right between the eyes, and you see a guy fall and another one fall, and you have no guns, very few people would be able to stand there and do it,” he said.
