Donald Trump complimented JD Vance’s weight loss during an Easter lunch on Wednesday, saying he was now a “perfect-looking specimen.”
Trump, 79, sought out the vice president in the audience, looking around the East Room. Finally, he saw him right up front, where the VP would normally be sitting at such occasions.
“He’s lost weight. He got a little thinner,” Trump said. “I’m looking for a heavy-set gentleman, and now I find a perfect-looking specimen.”
In January, when Trump was doing his routine about his mysterious “fat” friend who takes “the fat shot,” Vance denied that he was the subject.
“He’s not talking about me,” Vance, 41, interjected during the Cabinet meeting.
Vance’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast about any supposed weight loss recently, nor did the White House.
In August 2024, Vance said he had lost about 30 pounds since his 2022 Ohio Senate campaign. He credited diet and exercise, not weight loss medication.
As for Trump, he admitted to The New York Times in an Oval Office interview in January that he “probably should” take a GLP-1 weight loss drug like Wegovy or Ozempic.
Trump’s body mass index falls in the “overweight” category, according to last April’s physical, which had him at 6′ 3″, 224 pounds.
Trump gained weight during his first term. In 2018, he was 239 pounds, weighed in at 243 pounds in 2019, and was 244 pounds in 2020.
During Trump’s second term, officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have often shared workout videos. But Trump, who doesn’t sleep enough and eats a lot of fast food, seems content to get his exercise by walking around and golfing, even though he takes a cart—sometimes even on the green.
