WASHINGTON — President Trump playfully imitated a transgender weightlifter breezing through reps while addressing House Republicans during their policy retreat Tuesday.
Trump, 79, who recently blasted non-golf-related exercise as “boring” and “not for me,” tore into what he called the unfairness of transgender women who were born as men competing against biological women.
The president began by emulating a female weightlifter gasping and struggling to get the bar up, holding his fists up in the air to imitate the motions.
“I want to be more, but I have somebody watching,” Trump beamed during his address to the House GOP conference, which was captured on video. “I want to be more effusive.”
Trump then became more effusive with the imitation, which featured gasps, panting, moaning, and other noises that are difficult to describe in writing.
“Drops the thing, walks off the stage crying. Her mother’s crying, her father’s crying,” he added. “Guy gets up, he’s [asked], ‘Have you lifted before?’ ‘A little bit.’ And he walks up, bing.”
The president imitated a transgender weightlifter, easily raising the bar with little effort.
“It’s crazy,” he said dramatically.
Before launching into the imitation, Trump acknowledged that his wife, first lady Melania Trump, “hates” when he does his impersonation of transgender athletes, as well as his public dancing.
“By the way, my wife hates when I do this. She’s a very classy person,” Trump said. “She said, ‘It’s so unpresidential.’ But I said, ‘I did become president.’”
“But she says, ‘Darling, please the weightlifting is terrible.’”
Undeterred by his wife, Trump mocked a transgender weightlifter anyway.
Women’s sports activist Riley Gaines, who has been a staunch critic of transgender competition in girls’ sports, later praised Trump’s mocking of a transgender weightlifter.
“No, I don’t regret my vote. This is perfect,” she posted on X with a clip of his imitation.
Trump’s mocking of a transgender weightlifter came amid a broader attack against Democrats’ policies on transgenderism.
“Transgender for everyone! Bring your kids in, we’re gonna change the sex of your child,” Trump chided. “Just send them our way. In some cases, like in Minnesota, they don’t even tell the parents. And nobody believes it when I say it.
“They operate on the kid, they don’t tell the parents. It’s not believable.”
The president has frequently expressed his bewilderment at Democrats’ position on allowing transgender competitors in women’s sports, an issue that has fractured the party.
Shortly after Trump’s return to the White House last year, the president signed an executive order intended to keep biological men out of women’s sports through Title IX, which bars schools that partake in sex-based discrimination from getting federal funding.
“If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” Trump warned schools at the time after signing the order last February.
