President Donald Trump is facing heat after admitting on Wednesday that he had insulted an overweight friend while discussing what he called “the fat drug.”
“A friend of mine ― very, very heavy, he’s a very obese person ― I said, ‘You’re an extremely obese person,’” Trump recalled. His friend was complaining about how much more the drugs cost in the U.S. compared to Europe.
“I said, ‘Are you taking this stuff?’” Trump said.
“I said, ‘It’s not working. You look like shit,’” Trump said during a White House Rose Garden event for Republican lawmakers.
Trump has told versions of this story before, and on Wednesday he claimed the friend had begged him not to reveal his name.
While Trump often hurls insults at overweight people ― both friends and foes alike ― he has struggled with his own waistline over the years. The White House said his BMI is 29.7, the top of the “overweight” category and just shy of 30, which marks obesity. Trump’s physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, wrote that he had provided “preventive counseling” on diet and weight loss, among other topics.
Trump was also rumored to have been granted a “compassionate use” exemption for an experimental weight loss drug, which the White House has denied.
Trump’s own diet is famous for being less than healthy.
“The interesting thing about the president is that he eats really bad food, which is McDonald’s, and, you know, candy and Diet Coke,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told podcaster Katie Miller. “I don’t know how he’s alive, but he is.”
Kennedy added that Trump eats better at the White House than he does when he’s on the road. However, the book “Regime Change” by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported that Trump was known for leaving an “array of empty potato chip bags, Starburst wrappers and ice cream cartons in the trash or on the floor” at the White House.
Despite all that, Trump still felt the need to publicly insult his “friend” during the Wednesday night event and critics couldn’t help but point out the irony:
