President Donald Trump has spent his political career building up an image of himself as a physically powerful and intimidating man, pollster Cornell Belcher told a panel on MS NOW's "The Weeknight" — and now his mounting health problems, barely assuaged by his latest physical results, and visible signs of aging, are bringing that down.
"We've seen him sort of taking that little five-minute nap while others are talking," said anchor and former Republican chair Michael Steele, who then put up images of Trump next to football players to drive home a key point. "Last April, the White House physician claimed that Donald Trump was six three, six foot three ... and 224 pounds. So let's take a look. Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf is six feet four, 229 pounds. He has 4 percent body fat. Donald Trump claims the doctor said he has 5 percent body fat."
Fellow anchor Symone Sanders Townsend chimed in. "Can I just say, in defense of the president, I used to lie on my driver's license all the time," she said. "It said I was 150 for the last five years. I am 150 now. That's — I lost 80 pounds."
"Well ... here's the, the real problem is that he built so much of his brand around hypermasculinity and being — and being a tough guy and so much of sort of that, that MAGA cultlike behavior is about his brand of being a strongman," said Belcher.
"Putting his head on the body of a Greek Adonis and saying that's Trump," agreed Steele.
"And it's all part of the brand," Belcher continued. "But, and this is where it gets really problematic, because it begins to crumble when he's falling asleep, when he can't string together a sentence, when he clearly has visible signs of being 80 years old."
"This is why they have to keep building at it," he added. "Because part of his brand is this idea that he's a strongman. He's a tough guy. He's the biggest, strongest, toughest guy in the room, and he can get things done. And that begins to fall apart."
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