'McDonald's guy' Trump's athletic brag hammered by ex-RNC chief: 'Stop with this nonsense'

Former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele used Trump's birthday UFC spectacle at the White House to eviscerate what he characterized as the administration's carefully constructed — and deeply misleading — image of presidential fitness.In a column for MS NOW, Steele called out the White House health reports as nonsense and flagged the underlying narrative as patently suspicious.The target of Steele's critique was a Pentagon memo requiring military personnel hoping to attend the UFC event to meet specific body composition and fitness standards — a directive that read more like a casting call than a military order, according to a Washington Post report cited by Steele.The Pentagon says service members seeking tickets to Trump's UFC event must satisfy specific height-to-waist standards and meet all fitness requirements, the Post reported.Steele seized on the irony that, while the administration is requiring an audience of physically fit service members, Trump's own health metrics don't match.The president has spent years cultivating an image of himself as a peak specimen of physical vigor, Steele wrote. Former White House physician Ronny Jackson famously described him as having 'incredibly good genes.' Earlier this year, Trump's latest White House physician reported that he stood 6-foot-3, weighed 224 pounds and enjoyed 'excellent cognitive and physical health.' One of the supporting pieces of evidence? His golf victories.Steele then dismantled the official narrative. Can we stop with this nonsense? At the reported '238' pounds and a BMI of 29.7, Trump sits just shy of the obesity cutoff. It's very convenient math.The broader messaging strategy, Steele argued, appeared to be backfiring. Trump might think of himself as a UFC champ, but in real life he's more of a McDonald's guy, he quipped, before citing a YouGov poll showing that two-thirds of Americans believe they could defeat Trump in a physical fight, compared to just 10 percent who picked the president.So while the administration is reportedly checking troops' waistlines, the public appears unconvinced about the physical prowess of the man hosting the event, Steele observed.He concluded by characterizing the entire enterprise as theater designed to project strength ahead of Trump's 80th birthday. The reported fitness requirements are just part of this broader effort. Trump wants to create the perfect backdrop as he rings in his 80th year to a testosterone-soaked spectacle of blood and chokeholds, surrounded by svelte men in uniforms.