Trump was supposed to endorse Ashley Hinson at an Iowa rally, then opened a story about her weight loss with “I shouldn’t say this”

President Donald Trump has spent the final stretch of the midterms rallying for Republican Senate candidates across the country. His stop in Dubuque, Iowa, took an unexpected turn on Sunday, two days before Election Day. While urging voters to back Rep. Ashley Hinson, the president brought up her weight loss. He praised her for getting in shape “the old-fashioned way,” according to People.

Hinson, 43, is the Republican nominee for the Iowa Senate seat being left open by the retiring Joni Ernst, and she faces Democrat Josh Turek in Tuesday’s election. Speaking at the Five Flags Center, Trump first said Hinson would be “outstanding” in Washington. He then told the crowd he shouldn’t say what came next, calling it “inappropriate,” and claimed Hinson had asked him not to bring it up.

Trump went ahead anyway, telling supporters he had known Hinson for a long time and that “she was a little bit heavier.” He gestured toward his own chest as he spoke and said she lost the weight without “give me a shot,” an apparent reference to weight-loss injections. The president added that Hinson put herself “in perfect shape,” then joked that he had put on a couple of pounds himself.

A protester cut Trump off right in the middle of the Hinson story

The remarks about Hinson’s weight didn’t go uninterrupted, as a protester began shouting while Trump was still mid-story. The president told the crowd not to bother, calling the demonstrators “paid protesters” and comparing them to a gnat. He also claimed, without offering evidence, that protesters at his rallies are paid $250 by George Soros, before complaining that they always interrupt “right in the middle of my punchline.”

Once the crowd’s “USA” chant died down, Trump returned to the subject. He said Hinson knew how important the race was and that she went on a regimen to get in shape, adding that he thought she looked fine before, too. Hinson joined him onstage shortly after, and clips of the weight comments were circulating on X within hours of the rally.

The Dubuque event nearly didn’t happen at all. Trump called off the Iowa rally late last week, hours after canceling a planned Saturday stop in Kansas, then reversed course and rescheduled both. The Iowa stop went ahead on Sunday night. Appearance had come up days earlier, too, when he told a Reuters reporter who asked about his health that the reporter looked “sick” and should “put yourself in shape.”

This also isn’t the first time Trump has used a campaign stop to talk about a candidate’s body this cycle. In October, he joked about Jon Husted’s backside while telling Ohio voters to choose the senator. The Hinson remarks were different in one way, however, as Trump said on stage that she had asked him not to make them.

Hinson has pitched herself as “Iowa’s best bipartisan fighter” in recent weeks, while still welcoming the president’s support on the campaign trail. Neither Hinson nor the White House, however, had publicly addressed Trump’s comments about her weight by Monday. Hinson has represented Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, which covers the northeast part of the state, since 2021.

Iowa voters head to the polls on Tuesday, and the Hinson and Turek race is expected to be one of the tighter Senate contests on the map, with recent polling showing the two candidates nearly even.