Former President Donald Trump reportedly told a crowd at a fundraiser over the weekend that he thought Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana looked “pregnant.”
The comment came Saturday from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and club in Palm Beach, Florida, The Washington Post reported Monday.
According to the report, the former president was holding an event for the re-election campaign of Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas.
Jackson, who was the White House physician for Trump and other presidents, left his post in 2019 and successfully ran a campaign in the 13th Congressional District in Texas.
Up for a third term, Jackson joined Trump in South Florida, where the former president suggested that he and Jackson should campaign in Montana together against Tester – with whom the congressman has a history.
“He’s now in a tough campaign, and he could very well lose,” Trump said of the senator. “We ought to go up and campaign against him.”
Trump then said, “In fact, I looked at him, and I said, ‘Oh, this finally works for a man or woman, because he looks pregnant to me.’”
According to the Post, the Mar-a-Lago crowd laughed at Tester’s expense.
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“Have you seen this guy?” the former president said of the Montana Democrat. “He doesn’t look like a fat guy, except his stomach is out to here.”
“Not that I talk about things like that. I don’t even notice them,” he said.
Chris LaCivita, a senior campaign adviser to Trump, told the Post of the comment, “Well, according to the left, men can [be pregnant]. So where is the controversy?”
Jackson withdrew a bid to head the Department of Veterans Affairs in April 2018 after Trump had nominated him for the role.
Tester, then the ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, was among several Senate Democrats who investigated Jackson and unearthed claims from people who had worked with him that the physician had a history of overprescribing medication and would sometimes abuse alcohol and become “toxic” to work for, CNN reported.
At the time, Jackson — a rear admiral in the Navy — described the allegations as “completely false” and defended his record.
“If [the allegations] had any merit, I would not have been selected, promoted and entrusted to serve in such a sensitive and important role as physician to three presidents over the past 12 years,” he said.
Tester did not comment on Trump’s reported remarks about his appearance at Saturday’s fundraiser.
The Democrat will face off against the winner of the GOP primary — conservative businessman Tim Sheehy is the favorite — in a November race that could decide the balance of power in the Senate.
A J.L. Partners poll conducted in March showed the incumbent trailing Sheehy 48-45 percent, with 7 percent of voters undecided.
Tester was first elected to represent Montana in the Senate in 2006, but the state voted overwhelmingly for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
Trump endorsed Sheehy in February.
