President Donald Trump used a part of a meandering speech to House Republicans to beg photographers to make him look skinny.
Speaking on the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, the 79-year-old jumped from matter to matter, claiming Democrats are “owned by the insurance companies” and boasting that he’s “highly cognizant of law enforcement.”
At one level, the notoriously image-conscious president interrupted his personal speech to deal with photographers within the entrance row and demand that they take flattering photos of him. “Make me look thin for once, you’re making me look a bit heavy,” mentioned the president, whose physician reported him weighing in at 224 kilos final April. “I’m not happy about it.”
Trump gave the impression to be paying shut consideration to the media whereas flitting between subjects in his speech, pointing to what he referred to as “the fake news.”
“Pulitzer Prize! Pulitzer Prize!” he remarked, monitoring one other photographer together with his pointed finger. “He got one for the bullet,” he mentioned, referring to Doug Mills of The New York Times. Mills took a famous series of photos on the day Trump was shot in Pennsylvania whereas campaigning in 2024.
“All talented guys, these are great guys,” he mentioned of Mills’ colleagues. “I don’t like the people back there as much,” he mentioned, gesturing to the again of the room.
Trump has repeatedly spoken about his physique over time. During his first time period, he famously made North Korean despot Kim Jong Un grimace with one such remark.
“Getting a good picture, everybody? So we look nice and handsome and thin, and perfect,” he requested photographers and cameramen from the Singapore authorities’s tv channel throughout a historic summit within the nation in June 2018.
In 2019, Gizmodo reported that Trump’s official social media channels had been sharing pictures of the president re-touched to make him extra slender.