Liam O'Dell
15m
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
It’s an impression US president Donald Trump has performed several times now – in 2022, 2023 and back in January – and his latest attempt at impersonating a weightlifter has once again been branded “embarrassing” by social media users.
The 79-year-old convicted felon was speaking in The Villages in Florida on Friday when he brought up his wife Melania, and said the first lady believes his weightlifting impersonation is “so unpresidential”.
He said: “She particularly hates the image of me showing sweat and strain of the young woman trying to win the weightlifting contest against a group of women and one gentleman who decided to go on to the other side. He transferred to the other side and transgender, anyone?
“She got up and her mother was down there. Oh, her mother was so proud with the American flag, a little American flag … and she was screaming for her child, who was a weightlifter – a real good one – and she got up, and she grabbed it.
“And she got it. ‘Come on, baby, you can do it’. The mother’s screaming, the father didn’t care because he doesn’t believe that his daughter can beat the person that’s coming up next. The father’s saying ‘there’s no way she’s beating that guy’.
“So she gets up and she puts- and she’s ready … ‘Come on, darling,’ the mother’s screaming, ‘darling, I love you darling’. ‘Ah, mom, I can’t do it.’
“She couldn’t do it. She failed, she was devastated.”
The impression was part of a wider comment on trans women in women’s sports, to which the Republican is opposed, with the president going on to say “we want no transgender surgery and mulitization of our children”.
‘Mutilization’ isn’t even a word, by the way.
And the whole thing has shocked social media users, with content creator Ryan Rozbiani writing that Trump has “lost his mind”:
“The President of the United States needs some psychological help,” commented Canadian journalist Mark Slapinski:
Really American described the video as Trump “[humiliating] himself by play acting nonsense in front of a crowd of Seniors”:
Conservative journalist Breck Worsham asked: “What the literal f*** is this?”
Another X/Twitter user tweeted: “I can’t even imagine the shame and embarrassment 2/3 of the American people are feeling”:
And Wu Tang is for the Children said the video is “so embarrassing”:
It wasn’t the only controversial moment from the Florida speech to seniors, as journalist Aaron Rupar reported that “Live and Let Die” was one of the songs which played prior to Trump taking to the stage.
Yikes.
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