Donald Trump praises Nicki Minaj's arse

I've been doing this, what, 40 years, hooking up with the White House press corps on overseas trips, and never in my time did we have a leader of either party saying, checking out the backside of a celebrity. But that's the world we live in. Well, not openly anyway. Not openly anyway. Not openly, yeah. By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nicki Minaj. That's hard to miss. We love Trump. We love Trump. Michigan makes them know. So, President Trump, it is an honor to stand with you every single time, and I will continue to support you forever and ever. If you run again, I will support you again. Sounds like a cross between cage fighting and a night at the pub, doesn't it? Well, now, following conversations between Nicki Minaj and Stephen Chung, the White House Director of Communications, Mr. Chung went on to post a clip of the interaction on X with the caption, and I quote, Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have found the new White House press secretary. There is an exclamation mark. Now, normally we wouldn't cover something like that, but if you told me that we have a president who flouted with the idea of putting an execution, a fire squad execution, on some kind of streaming TV service, that he has as his war or sort of defence secretary, he likes to call him war secretary, someone who totally ignores the death of more than 400 British military personnel. If you told me all of that, I would have thought, oh, and a press secretary who's just lasted five days. So you just don't know, do you? Now, you mentioned Trump commenting on men's bodies, particular parts of men's bodies. Particular parts of men's bodies, which we chronicled with Lewis last week a couple of times. He came up and he was talking very nicely and I stood right over here and I examined his ass. I never did that. No, I never did that with a man before. I examined his ass, and then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline. Study him. He's got a jawline. This is sick. You would be very unfortunate if you picked a fight with him at a bar someday. This time it's Nicki Minaj's turn. She and Donald Trump were together on the campaign trail in Michigan yesterday. I mean, it kind of goes from bad to worse, doesn't it? When you think about how much he plays by rules that would shatter any other politician. I don't, I listen to that. I don't feel anything. Honestly, it's water off a duck's back. I think she knows what she's getting into with him. He knows what he's getting into with her. And the thing you have to remember about Trump is that he doesn't want to talk about the Iran war. He doesn't want to talk about the price of petrol. He doesn't want to talk about gas or diesel or the fact that he's just bankrolled Putin's war. He wants to remind people why they liked him in the first place and the reason that they liked him in the first place. He's a guy. He said shocking things and he liked Locker Room Banjo and he said funny things. He went to places that, oh, I can think that, but I can't say it out loud. And so Trump, I think, you know, don't forget that he understands the power of the entertainer. He came to politics through entertainment. If he can titillate people, if he can remind them why they sort of... I found him, you know, a little bit tasty in the first place. That's what he's doing here. You know, and I don't think that, frankly, Nicki Minaj will feel more demeaned by his comments about her backside than she should by her comments about Trump in the first place. So I think we'd be, you know, I'm not going to get on a sort of high horse. No, no, no. Isn't it disgusting? More of the same. That's who he is. More of the same. Any chance she'll be the next press secretary? Oh, hadn't gone that far. No, you've got a few thoughts, haven't you, Sheila? No, I'm not going on air with those thoughts. No, OK. Look, I think the interesting thing about Katie Zakaria, who just left us, is in a weird way, that the problem that people had with her was that she wasn't... Fluent enough as a liar, fluent enough as a propaganda artist. And I think we have to be really careful what we're asking for now. You know, the fact that she stumbled because she couldn't just reel off a whole load of his propaganda talking points straight away should not really stand against her. It should actually kind of make you think, oh, you know. And maybe she did need to go back to her drawing board and think about these things. But I don't like the idea that we've all been hailing Caroline Lever as this amazing press secretary because her lying was so fluent. It was brilliant. Tom Rivers joins me, American broadcaster and journalist who's a former London correspondent for the American network, ABC News Radio. We'll hear from Barack Obama in a moment on the campaign trail for someone else. Very different style, of course. Nobody needs to be told that. Thank What's your reading of that moment on the campaign trail that we've just had? you You know, I look at this, Sheila, and I've been doing this, what, 40 years, very hooking up with the White House press corps on overseas trips and never in my... In my time, did we have a leader of either party saying, much checking out the backside of a celebrity? for But that's the world we live in. Well, not openly anyway. that. Not openly anyway. Not openly, yeah. But for public consumption. But we live in this world with social media, this animal that you and I could not even conjecture. Working on Fleet Street in the 80s, a very different animal. But that's where we are, Sheila. And it's part and parcel. Of this entire very important midterm election that we're looking at in states like Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, Ohio. Again, we think back to a couple of years ago and we said, you know, what's the country going to do? And it boils down this year in the midterms to about half a dozen states that will determine the Senate. And then maybe about 18 different House seats sprinkled around the country. So, yes, you kind of look it's like golf. A lot of the states and races are gimmies, and then you look at the crucial ones, and Michigan certainly is one of those. And is behavior like that, or language like that, is it just baked in now? Has it been baked in for a long time from an American voter's perspective, that it will move no dial in any direction when he speaks like this? Well, again, if you look at the rally on Saturday with Obama, considerably smaller Smaller than the rally. With Trump on Sunday, that doesn't win or lose elections, but the whole thing is about momentum. We're eight minutes out, and that's where a lot of money has been kind of stashed away for this particular week in the various states. So, yes, watch those ads in America, and if you're shocked by what we just heard from the president, you probably haven't seen nothing yet. Oh, dear. Oh, my goodness. And I've been talking to my callers this hour about whether a Donald Trump that loses in these elections or loses either either house or maybe even both. Right. Will that be better or worse for the international community, in your view, if he loses? I think it really makes no difference because he will then use the executive orders at his disposal, which if in two years, Sheila. Whoever the Democratic candidate is, if the Democrats win, guess what? They rip those up and they start over. So basically, either you're going to get it through Congress, through legislation, or you're going to get it through executive order. So no respite for the Trump critics internationally. I was conscious when he was, both last week when he was talking about the men's bodies and then the thing he said to Nicki Minaj. I mean, I know that Emily said it's like water off a duck's back to her now, but I still, I still am shocked by that kind of comment from him and mystified as well as to how he manages to get away with, and I don't just mean get away with it in terms of people. You know, not particularly going on about it or anything. I mean, really get away with it politically. The way he gets away with that kind of talk. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if a British prime minister stood and said those things about somebody and was heard to say those things about somebody? They just wouldn't survive it, would they? What is it about him that he manages to survive again and again and again? And could we, again, as Emily hinted, could we find that the polls are all wrong about these midterms and that he isn't going to face the trouncing that some are predicting?