If you’re looking for a quintessential example of fragile masculinity, look no further. President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday morning that, in pledging to pick a woman as his running mate, Joe Biden has offended men everywhere.
Trump made his comments in a simpering interview with Fox Sports personality and OutKick founder Clay Travis. Travis’ fearsome questioning covered why the president thinks the media is so mean to him, what sports he likes to watch on television, and if he thought Biden had made a mistake doing something so outlandish as to choose a woman as his as-yet-unannounced vice-presidential pick.
Asked by Travis who he would pick if he was in Biden’s position, the president replied: “I would be inclined to a different route to the way he’s done. First of all he roped himself into a, you know, certain group of people.” For those unable to crack the president’s mysterious code, Travis explained: “He said he had to pick a woman.”
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Trump replied: “He said that. Some people would say that men are insulted by that, and some people would say it’s fine. I don’t know.”
Trump then completely dismissed the importance of a running mate—before appearing to realize what he was saying, stopping himself, lavishing praise on his right-hand man Mike Pence, and then trashing the importance of Pence’s job yet again.
“I will say this, people don’t vote for the vice.... You know, this is history, this isn’t necessarily me, this is history because we have a great vice president,” said Trump. “Mike Pence has been incredible actually. He’s been a great vice president and done a really, really good job in everything I’ve given him—but people don’t vote for the vice president, they really don’t.”
Trump went on to say that it wouldn’t affect either his or Biden’s election chances if he had George Washington as his running mate or if he brought Abraham Lincoln “back from the dead.”
The president was nominally on the OutKick show to discuss sports, but only really talked about it in relation to Black Lives Matter and the peaceful protests against police brutality against Black people being carried out by players.
Asked for his thoughts on the NFL reopening soon, Trump responded, “If they don’t stand for the national anthem, I hope they don’t open. But other than that I’d love to see them open and we’re doing everything possible to get them open. They can protest in other ways, they shouldn’t protest our flag or our country.”
Trump went on to criticize players taking the knee in the NBA, saying there was a “nastiness” about players’ peaceful protests, but praised the predominantly white National Hockey League, saying its players “respected the mores, they respected what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Toward the end of the interview, Travis also asked the president who he considers the better player, Michael Jordan or LeBron James. In what Travis lauded as a “perfect answer,” Trump picked Jordan as “he wasn’t political, so people like him better.”
Travis rounded off the hard-hitting interview by wishing Trump “good luck for the rest of [his] term—and maybe the next one too!”
