Donald Trump has a fixation on surrounding himself with good-looking people.
The president often comments on other people’s looks.
On multiple occasions, he has made his beauty standards the topic of discussion. Trump has openly praised the physical appearance of men in his administration and beyond. Even conversations unrelated to looks have somehow turned into opportunities for him to size up another man’s physique.
His recent “60 Minutes” interview, which aired on Nov. 8, was a trove of baffling moments, odd Trump commentary, and unforgettable admissions he’ll wish never made it onto TV.
This year, the Department of Defense began declassifying alien and UFO documents dating back nearly nine decades with records of unusual sightings.
However, none of the files explicitly state that humans exist among extraterrestrials. Still, reporter Ross Douthat probed Trump over the topic.
“Is there anything that you have seen or heard about or been told about that would lead you to think that there’s something more there than just, ‘We’re having a good time looking at things in the sky?’” Douthat asked.
Trump’s answer could have been straightforward, but, as usual, he began on topic and then wove his way into bizarre rambling.
“I’m not too much of a believer,” he said, noting meetings he held with Air Force pilots during both of his terms. And then his candor drifted into critiquing the airmen.
Trump said they were “young, handsome. They have crew— beautiful, nice flat-tops. I’d like to have a haircut just like ’em. They look perfect, like Tom Cruise. They look — Tom Cruise.”
Douthat interjected with, “Very, very fit in the posterior?”
The president said, “They’re thin, you know, very thin and very everything. And — but they’re real — they’re the real deal. And they’ve told me things that are very strange.”
Viewers were stupefied by Trump’s unabashed admission, saying, “Douthat was just trolling for 30% of that interview.”
“He doesn’t know what posterior means. Right over his stupid head,” a second person remarked. A third person, stunned by his repetitive remarks, stated, “Oh good grief. Again? Wth?”
During an October midterm rally, Trump talked about “examining” Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s physique.
“I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched, up and down. I looked at his ass,” Trump admitted.
A resurfaced reaction read, “Tom Cruise just declined a Kennedy Center award from Trump!”
The movie star declined an invitation to join the 2025 class of Kennedy Center honorees. His purported reason was “scheduling conflicts.”
Cruise’s disinterest in associating with Trump came to light five years earlier.
The actor reportedly scrapped an outer space film that would have required Trump’s approval and cooperation from NASA and SpaceX.
Last December, a Page Six source claimed, “Tom Cruise did not want to ask Donald Trump for a favor. You’d need permission from the federal government…Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons.”
Trump’s comments on “60 Minutes” have sparked new headlines about the men, but it’s hardly the first time he’s referenced the action-film star.
A 2020 montage of clips is a reminder that Trump has considered Cruise the “standard” for the Air Force’s “central casting.”
For some, it seems the president thought the optics of “Top Gun” could be manufactured for real life; he did it within his administration, and now the military seems to have to fit his beauty standards, too.
“You know he’s talking about this scene in Top Gun, right?” said one person, pointing to the iconic beach volleyball scene in the 1986 film “Top Gun.”
In the scene, Rick Rossovich, who played Slider, shows off his physique alongside Cruise as Naval aviator Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and the other pilots.
Set to “Playing with the Boys,” the slow-motion match pits Maverick and Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) against rivals Iceman and Slider, becoming an 80s pop culture classic that later inspired the beach football scene in 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Trump’s fascination with appearance has become an unmistakable pattern, even when the conversation has nothing to do with looks.
Whether he’s sizing up military pilots, commenting on a senator’s backside or holding Tom Cruise up as the gold standard, the president repeatedly finds a way to make physical appearance part of the discussion.
His latest comments also raise an awkward question: Is Trump more interested in the military’s image than the people actually serving in it?
For a president who frequently demands admiration, his fixation on how other men look may be telling fans more than he intended.
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