Trump has a long history of disparaging his political opponents, especially women, over their looks. In the video, he immediately follows his comments by declaring that he doesn’t “talk about things like that” and never talks “about looks for a man or for a woman.”
Tester is one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents this cycle, and a top target for Republicans aiming to win back control of the Senate. He is one of just two Democrats this year seeking reelection in a state that Trump won in 2020. Trump has endorsed Tester’s GOP opponent, Tim Sheehy.
Tester will need to court Trump’s voters this year to win election in a state that President Joe Biden will almost certainly lose. Tester has sought to cast himself as willing to stand up to both parties and has at times volleyed between praising and criticizing Trump.
Tester is “in a tough campaign that he could very well lose,” Trump said at Saturday’s event. In the video, he suggests to Jackson that they go to campaign together against Tester, before ridiculing Tester’s appearance.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Washington Post first reported on Trump’s remarks about Tester.
As White House physician, Jackson declared Trump “very healthy” in 2018 but acknowledged that the then-president’s body mass index put him just under the line for an obesity classification.
“The president’s acknowledged that he would be healthier if he lost a few pounds and that’s what we’re going to try to do,” Jackson said during a news briefing at the time.
Later that year, Trump nominated Jackson to serve as his secretary of Veterans Affairs. But Tester, who served as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, helped derail that nomination, citing reports from people who knew Jackson in the Navy saying that he handed out prescriptions “like candy.”
Jackson ran for the House in 2020, winning a deep-red district in the Texas panhandle.
As Tester navigates a conservative state, the moderate Democrat has at times tried to embrace the former president but he has also been critical and voted twice to impeach Trump.
In his 2018 campaign, Tester ran https://twitter.com/jontester/status/974415454440603650 noting that he had 13 bills signed into law by Trump. He also ran an ad, titled “Trump Praise.” When Trump held a rally in Great Falls, Montana, Tester took out a full-page ad in local newspapers welcoming Trump to the state and thanking him.
But he has struck a far different tone in his fundraising pleas, vowing to “undo the damage of Trump’s presidency” and chastising his attacks in 2019 on four Democratic congresswomen known as The Squad.
Ursula Perano contributed to this story.
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