Former President Donald Trump made unusual and vulgar comments about the late golf legend on Saturday Arnold Palmer while campaigning in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, as the campaign enters the final stretch to Election Day.
The former president spoke for more than 10 minutes about Palmer, who was born in Latrobe, during a gathering at the local airport named in Palmer’s honor.
“He was an incredible man, he was an incredible champion, and he was from Latrobe,” Trump said.
Then his comments seemed to go off script.
“This is a man who was all man,” the former president said. “This guy was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he was in the shower with the other pros, they came out and they said, ‘Oh my God, that’s incredible.'”
To laughter, Trump added, “I had to say it.”
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Trump noted that he has been to Latrobe and told the story before, but “not in this kind of detail.”
Palmer’s daughter Peg Palmer Wears said in 2018 that her father, a political conservative who died in 2016 shortly before Trump was elected, was “shocked” by Trump.
“What would my father think of Donald Trump today? I think he’s cringing,” she told author Thomas Hauser at the time.
She told The Associated Press on Sunday that she is “not really angry” about Trump’s comment and said she “doesn’t have much to say.”
“I think it was a bad choice to remember my father, but what are you going to do?” Palmer Wears said.
Later in his remarks, Trump led the crowd in a call-and-response about the Biden-Harris administration’s economic and foreign policy achievements, saying that “everything they touch turns into…” as the crowd chimed in with the expletive .
“You need to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it anymore. We can’t stand you. You’re a… vice president. The worst,” Trump told the crowd. about his Democratic rival. “You’re the worst vice president. Kamala, you’re fired.’
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was repeatedly asked Sunday about Trump’s comments about Arnold Palmer on CNN’s “State of the Union,” but he turned to Harris’ record and said to “put the rhetoric aside .’
“This shouldn’t be about personalities, it should be about policy,” Johnson said.
Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Harris has questioned Trump’s mental state in recent days as she has sharpened her criticism of the former president. On Saturday, she told reporters that Trump is “becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged.”
“The American people are seeing it and witnessing it in real time,” she added.
