Donald Trump can’t seem to get over how tall Chinese President Xi Jinping is—just like a Chinese leader should be.
During an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday, the 79-year-old president slipped into one of his trademark movie-star comparisons, noting that if someone was making a film featuring a Chinese leader, they wouldn’t have to look beyond the 72-year-old Communist Party chief.
“If you went to Hollywood and looked for a leader of China to play a role in a movie,” Trump told Hannity, “he’s Central Casting. You couldn’t find a guy like him.”
The president, who has famously appeared as himself in films including Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Zoolander, then went on to comment on Xi’s “physical features.”
“He’s tall, he’s very tall,” Trump said of the Chinese leader, who is approximately 5ft 11in, compared with Trump’s own claimed height of 6ft 3in.
Trump then noted that people in China “tend to be a little bit shorter,” a comment that raised eyebrows on social media.
“Trump said the quiet part loud, the racist part loud, and the stupid part loud,” one user wrote on X about the president’s comments, adding, “All at once. This man is EXHAUSTING.”
Another user further highlighted how much Trump managed to pack into a single remark, writing on X: “He simultaneously complimented Xi, was racist towards Chinese ppl, and proved he lives in weird tv/movie fantasy.”
This is not the first time the president has publicly praised other men’s physical appearance.
Last month, the president told Brazilian MMA fighter Paulo Costa that he was a “beautiful guy,” adding that he could “be a model” and that he was “too good-looking to be a fighter.”
Two weeks later, he praised the “very strong, physically strong, really attractive” law enforcement officers who escorted him out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner after 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen opened fire outside the room in an alleged assassination attempt.
The president’s admiration for authoritarian leaders is also not a secret. He has showered Russian President Vladimir Putin with praise over the years and has spoken approvingly of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Trump’s trip to China, which included a meeting between the two leaders that overran, featured further praise from the U.S. president for Xi.
Trump described Xi as a “great leader,” thanked him for a “magnificent welcome,” and described their relationship as “the longest relationship of our two countries that any president and president has had,” which he added was “an honor.”
Before leaving for Beijing, Trump already seemed mesmerized by Xi, describing him as a “friend” and “somebody we get along with.”
Trump and Xi also posed in Beijing’s historic Zhongnanhai Garden for a “friendship photo” on Thursday, after which Trump was promised rose seeds from the old imperial garden for the White House Rose Garden he has had paved over.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone’s ever seen,” Trump told Xi during their walk, according to a White House press pool report.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
