Donald Trump is a busy man, but he always makes time for children.
The president brought a bunch of them into the Oval Office on Tuesday — along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and an all-star team of MAGA athletes — for the signing of a memo reinstating the “Presidential Fitness Test Award,” which will be given to schoolchildren for “tremendous achievement and personal commitment to to strength, health, and physical fitness.”
Trump has never let the stated intention of any particular event, or the event’s audience, prevent him from rambling about whatever crosses his mind, and Tuesday was no exception. Surrounded by children, he ranted about the stock market, his poll numbers, how he should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending eight wars, and also the war he just started for no coherent reason.
“We can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said, turning to the kids. “You might be too young for this. I don’t know. You probably know better than most people. But you can’t let a bunch of lunatics have a nuclear weapon or the world would be in trouble.”
“We would have had Iran with a nuclear weapon, and maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now,” he added at one point, ensuring the young Americans present were aware of the prospect of nuclear annihilation. (Iran was not on the precipice of having a nuclear weapon before the war, despite Trump’s claims, and a recent intelligence assessment indicated that the war has not hindered the nation’s nuclear capabilities.)
Temporarily veering back on topic, Trump also took the chance to talk with some of the assembled youth about their athletic ambitions.
“I’m doing football right now and next year I’m going to be trying to do power lifting,” one child told the president.
“And you’ll never compete against women in power lifting,” Trump replied. “Did you see that they had a man power lifter and he decided to go in the opposite direction. He took a record that stood for 18 years and he beat it by 119 pounds. He was a failed power lifter and he went on the other side and he decided that he wanted to go into women’s sports and he broke the record.”
“Do you think that’s fair?” he asked golfer Bryson Dechambeau before turning back to the child. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about you.”
The event was held to undo the actions of Barack Obama’s administration, which phased out the Presidential Fitness Test in lieu of programs focused more on general health and nutrition rather than athletic metrics. Trump relished bashing the move on Tuesday. “We had the Obama administration. Wonderful, wonderful person. Barack Hussein Obama, have you heard of him?” he asked the youngsters, who will surely have plenty to think about at their next recess.
Trump capped off the event on the White House lawn, where he demonstrated his own physical fitness by pumping his fists to “Eye of the Tiger” and missing a few golf putts.
