'I looked at his a**’: Trump’s bizarre physical critique of Ohio Senator Jon Husted at rally

US President Donald Trump praised Senator Jon Husted’s attractiveness and athleticism during a rally in Ohio, US. The campaign was aimed at rallying support for Republican candidates ahead of the midterms. During the rally, the president urged Ohio voters to re-elect Husted, who faces a challenge from Sherrod Brown, the state’s former Democratic senator.

Former Super Bowl-winning coach Jon Gruden introduced Trump at Monday’s event and noted that he and Husted had been teammates in college. “I'm standing over here, and I don't do this with men very often. I started examining [Husted’s] body because I didn't know he was a great athlete, and I looked, and I watched up and down,” Trump said on Monday night while addressing a crowd in Youngstown. “I looked at his a**, and I looked at the whole, and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He's got these like claws," he added.

Husted was an All-American defensive back at the University of Dayton, where he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees; he and Gruden played together on the Dayton Flyers in 1985. “I said, ‘John, what are you doing here?’ I thought he was going to say, ‘I'm here for you, sir. I have such respect for you.’ But he didn't say that. He said, ‘I'm here for my teammate.’ I said, ‘Who's your teammate?’ He said, ‘It's John Husted,’” Trump told the crowd.

Trump said Gruden had told him about Husted’s athletic talent, recounting that when he asked Gruden whether Husted was any good, Gruden told him he’d been the best player on the team. “John Gruden is a great coach on a lot of championship teams. John, did you ever have a woman that you were desperate to have on one of your championship teams?” Trump said. “How about every once in a while I'll see a kicker — they have a kicker who's a female because they put them on.”

Later in his remarks, Trump made an unsubstantiated claim that Brown supports allowing men to compete in women’s sports, before launching into a tangent about female kickers in football. “Let's put her on. I like Sophie. Yeah, you'd have a lot of men wanting to go and watch her. She's beautiful. You're not allowed to say that anymore. However, as a politician, please, please let me take it back,” the president said.