Donald Trump seems to have a habit of surrounding himself with attractive people.
The president frequently weighs in on the appearances of others.
On more than one occasion, he has turned beauty standards into a talking point. Trump has openly praised the looks of men within his administration and beyond, and even conversations that have nothing to do with appearance have, at times, become chances to size up another man’s physique.
His recent interview with “60 Minutes,” which aired on Nov. 8, was packed with perplexing moments, strange Trump remarks, and memorable admissions he will likely regret airing on television.
This year, the Department of Defense began releasing previously classified alien and UFO documents dating back nearly nine decades, containing notes about unusual sightings.
Yet none of the files definitively confirm that humans exist among extraterrestrials. Still, reporter Ross Douthat pressed Trump on the matter.
“Is there anything you’ve seen or heard about or been told that would lead you to think there’s something more there than simply a scene of us enjoying things in the sky?” Douthat asked.
Trump’s reply could have been straightforward, but as is common for him, he started on a topic and then wandered into a string of odd tangents.
“I’m not too much of a believer,” he said, recalling meetings with Air Force pilots from both of his terms. And then his candor shifted toward critiquing the airmen themselves.
He described them as “young, handsome. They have crew— beautiful, nice flat-tops. I’d like to have a haircut just like ’em. They look perfect, like Tom Cruise. They look — Tom Cruise.”
Douthat pressed, “Very, very fit in the posterior?”
The president replied, “They’re thin, you know, very thin and very everything. And — but they’re real — they’re the real deal. And they’ve told me things that are very strange.”
Viewers were stunned by Trump’s candid admission, with many remarking that Douthat seemed to be trolling for a reaction during a sizable portion of the interview.
“He doesn’t know what posterior means. Right over his stupid head,” another viewer quipped. A third observer, taken aback by the repeated remarks, sighed, “Oh good grief. Again? What the heck?”
Back in October at a midterm rally, Trump spoke about “examining” the physique of Republican Sen. Jon Husted.
“I didn’t realize he was such a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched, up and down. I looked at his rear,” Trump confessed.
A resurfaced reaction read, “Tom Cruise just declined a Kennedy Center award from Trump!”
The movie star declined an invitation to join the 2025 class of Kennedy Center honorees. His stated reason was “scheduling conflicts.”
Cruise’s disinterest in aligning with Trump came into focus five years earlier.
The actor was reportedly reluctant to endorse a project that would have required Trump’s approval and cooperation from NASA and SpaceX.
Late last December, a Page Six source claimed, “Tom Cruise did not want to ask Donald Trump for a favor. You’d need permission from the federal government…Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons.”
Trump’s remarks on “60 Minutes” have sparked fresh headlines about Cruise, but they are far from the first time he has referenced the action star.
A 2020 montage of clips reminds viewers that Trump has long treated Cruise as the benchmark for the Air Force’s “central casting.”
To some, it seems the president believed the optics of a Top Gun scenario could be translated into real life; he attempted to shape reality within his own administration, and now the military may be expected to reflect his beauty standards, as well.
“You know he’s talking about this scene in Top Gun, right?” one observer noted, pointing to the iconic beach volleyball sequence from the 1986 film “Top Gun.”
In that scene, Rick Rossovich’s Slider stands beside Cruise’s Maverick as Naval aviator Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and the others strike poses.
Set to “Playing with the Boys,” the slow-motion match features Maverick and Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) taking on rivals Iceman and Slider, a moment that became a pop-culture staple of the 80s and later inspired the beach football moment in 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Trump’s fixation on appearance has emerged as a clear pattern, even when the subject matter has nothing to do with looks.
Whether he’s evaluating military pilots, commenting on a senator’s backside, or elevating Tom Cruise as the gold standard, the president repeatedly threads physical appearance into the discussion.
His latest remarks also raise an awkward question: Does Trump care more about how the military presents itself than about the people who actually serve?
For a president who routinely seeks applause, his obsession with men’s appearances may reveal more about his audience than he intended.
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