President Donald Trump seemed to get oddly specific on Friday while discussing hair products that give the impression of having “4 percent” more up top.
Trump, whose medical records indicate he used to take the anti-balding drug Propecia, broached the subject while telling a group of law enforcement officials in Garden City, New York, that certain items in pharmacies are placed on shelves that can be locked to prevent theft.
“Every shelf has glass on it, and it has a lock and a key. I said, ‘Why do you do that? How do you live like that?’ You want a toothbrush or a little toothpaste, or you want to get a little Dove soap,” he said. “You want a little of that good hair that can puff up your hair a little bit more, so it makes it look like you have 4 percent more than you had—they charge you for it.”
“Give me a break. And that’s because nothing happens to these criminals,” Trump said, during a speech in which the 80-year-old also weirdly discussed “young, beautiful girls.”
Trump’s hair was the subject of more attention than usual last week. On Wednesday, during an appearance in Las Vegas, it appeared fluffier than normal. On Friday, it seemed to be a shade darker.
In his first term, Trump’s medical reports featured Propecia, but since he took office a second time, the drug has not appeared in any publicly released records.
Following a June report, the White House said that it “reflects all medications deemed clinically relevant to disclose at this time,” adding, “No additional undisclosed conditions or procedures materially affecting his health status were omitted from this report.”
In his 2018 book about the Trump administration, Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff wrote that the president’s daughter, Ivanka, “often described the mechanics behind [her father’s head] to friends: an absolutely clean pate—a contained island after scalp reduction surgery—surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray.”
According to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, a pair of scissors is never far away.
“Trump had every comfort close at hand. His longtime aide and personal valet, Walt Nauta (who bore the title director of Oval Office operations), would carry around not just the usual personal items—makeup, hairspray, Tic Tacs—but also scissors so that Trump could snip his hair when he found that it was getting too long in the back, poking over his collar,” they wrote in their recently published book Regime Change.
