President Trump joked Monday that he inspected Sen. Jon Husted’s backside after discovering that the Ohio Republican had been a standout college football player.
Speaking at a rally in Ohio, Trump said he was surprised to learn about Husted’s “athletic prowess” at the University of Dayton. He said a closer look at the otherwise reserved senator convinced him the claim was true.
“I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body because I didn’t know he was a great athlete,” Trump told supporters in Youngstown. “And I looked and I watched up and down.”
“I looked at his ass, and I looked at the whole—” Trump continued.
The remark prompted laughter from the crowd.
Trump went on to point to Husted’s hands. “Look at his hands. He’s got these, like, claws,” he said, before concluding, “You are a great athlete.”
“I didn’t know that because he doesn’t talk about that,” the president added.
Trump also suggested that Husted’s poll numbers had benefited from Ohio voters learning that he was an All-American defensive back on the 1989 Division III championship team at Dayton.
After inviting Husted onto the stage, Trump later joked, “I just hit him in the back and I hurt my hand a little bit. He’s like a piece of steel.”
Husted is engaged in a closely fought Senate race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio. Trump portrayed Brown as “the candidate of the Marxist, the communists and the anti-American radicals who want to tear down America’s heritage.”
“He was here with the worst border we’ve ever had. The economy was terrible and everything else. He was here during a very dark period for our country,” Trump said of Brown.
The president also warned that Ohio could be “destroyed like Minnesota” if Democrats returned to power.
“If you want to stop Ohio from being plundered, ransacked and destroyed like Minnesota is being destroyed—if you want to stop it before it begins, vote for Jon Husted and vote for [GOP gubernatorial candidate] Vivek Ramaswamy,” Trump told the audience.
“Democrats want to burn it all down,” Trump argued, urging voters not to allow Brown to “slither his way back into power.”
Super Bowl-winning NFL coach Jon Gruden and boxer and influencer Jake Paul accompanied Trump aboard Air Force One on the trip from Washington to Youngstown.
Gruden, who was born in Sandusky, Ohio, and played college football with Husted, introduced Trump at the rally.
“To maximize our true potential, we gotta believe in our leadership and we gotta do it together,” said the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders head coach. “And if we can get this group elected, great days are ahead.”
Paul, who grew up in Cleveland, accused Democrats of running “evil” candidates who were “willing to do anything to destroy us.”
“We have to protect this state,” said the YouTuber-turned-boxer.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, Sen. Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, and embattled Rep. Max Miller, also a Republican from Ohio, attended the event.
Miller, whose ex-wife – Moreno’s daughter – has accused him of physically abusing her and their young daughter, received a shout-out from the president but was not asked to come up on stage.