Trump spotted Nicki Minaj at his Michigan rally, asked her to stand and publicly praised her backside before returning to a story about another politician’s physique. Yes, this was a midterm campaign rally.
Donald Trump was in Michigan to help Republicans win elections, but for a few minutes the campaign message became considerably more anatomical. While speaking in Port Huron on Sunday, Trump spotted Nicki Minaj in the crowd and decided the moment required a public review of her backside.
The detour began while Trump was revisiting an earlier story about Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s physique. Trump had previously drawn attention for saying he had examined Husted’s body and noticed his rear end, so naturally the logical next step was apparently to clarify that women remain his preferred area of expertise.
“Off the record, women, yes, men, no, OK?” Trump told the crowd, according to a transcript of the rally. He then pivoted directly to Minaj and said he had looked at “one hell of a beautiful a**,” adding that hers was “hard to miss.”
Trump asked Minaj to stand, and she rose from her seat as the crowd cheered. He then said he hoped she was not insulted and tried to return to his original story, which by that point had been buried somewhere under two separate conversations about political rear ends.
There are campaign rallies where candidates talk about taxes, inflation and foreign policy. Then there are campaign rallies where the president pauses mid-speech to rank the visual impact of Nicki Minaj’s backside while thousands of people applaud, which is one reason political consultants no longer sleep normally.
Minaj did not appear offended in the moment. She later joined Trump onstage, praised him repeatedly and urged Michigan voters to support Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms.
Her appearance was already a major part of the rally before Trump’s comment. Minaj traveled with Trump aboard Air Force One, wore a gold Gucci outfit and continued a very public political turn that has made her one of the president’s most visible celebrity supporters.
The rapper told the crowd that Trump had changed the energy of the country and promised to continue supporting him. She even said she would support him again if he ran again, which immediately created another round of headlines before anyone had finished processing the anatomy portion of the evening.
Trump returned the praise after Minaj spoke, saying she had “never looked more beautiful” and calling her smart and special. By then, the rally had become part political event, part celebrity endorsement and part extremely strange awards show with no standards department.
The exchange also landed amid speculation about who might become the next White House press secretary. Trump aides had already joked online about Minaj interviewing for the job, although there is no indication she has actually been appointed to anything.
That makes the entire sequence even more surreal. A rapper rumored as a joke candidate for press secretary flies on Air Force One, endorses Republicans, gets praised from the stage for her backside and then delivers a political speech in gold Gucci.
None of this requires much embellishment for Buzzy Times because the actual transcript has already done the work. If a fictional political satire wrote this scene, an editor would probably send it back with a note saying to make it slightly more believable.
Instead, it happened at a real presidential rally less than two weeks before the midterms. And somewhere in Michigan, at least one voter went home having learned absolutely nothing about tax policy but quite a lot about the president’s views on Nicki Minaj.
