Former President Donald Trump urged his female supporters to tell their "fat pig" husbands to get off the couch and vote for him early in the election.
Speaking at a rally in Detroit in the key swing state of Michigan on Friday, the former president jokingly suggested how women should convince their husbands to ensure he does not lose the upcoming race against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump made the remarks as early voting begins in Detroit this weekend before being expanded to the rest of Michigan on October 26. Early and mail-in voters have historically favored Democratic candidates in presidential elections.
The former president recently criticized the city of Detroit while in the city, warning the "whole country will end up being like Detroit" if Harris is elected president. During Friday's rally, Trump backtracked and described Detroit as somewhere with "great potential" and a "sacred place."
"Early voting is underway, so get everyone you know and go out and vote, go tomorrow it's just starting," Trump told the Detroit crowd towards the end of the rally.
"Go and vote. Make sure you vote and bring all our friends that want to vote for us. Tell them, 'Jill. Get your fat husband off the couch. Get that—get that fat pig off the couch. Tell him to go and vote for Trump. He's going to save our country.'
"Get him up, Jill. Slap him around. Get him up! Get him up, Jill. We want him off the couch to get out and vote," Trump added.
Newsweek has contacted Trump's campaign team for comment via email.
Trump critics online have mocked the "fat pig" remarks on social media.
Tristan Snell, a lawyer and former assistant attorney general for New York, posted on X (formerly Twitter): "18 days to go—and Trump starts calling his own supporters 'fat pigs' who are too lazy to get off the couch to vote."
Adam Jentleson, political commentator and former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, wrote: "If you wanna read too much into this, as I do, it seems like he is preoccupied with the idea that the people he's relying on won't vote."
The social media account for the liberal news outlet Meidas Touch added: "He thinks so highly of his voters."
The race in the battleground state of Michigan is still too close to call with less than three weeks to go.
According to forecasting and polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Harris is marginally ahead in Michigan by 0.6 points (47.7 to 47.1 percent).
Harris's clearest path to victory in November is to win the three so-called blue wall swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, barring any shock results elsewhere.
Trump could win the 2024 election overall by beating Harris in the Sun Belt swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, and flipping Michigan.
President Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan in 2020 by 2.8 points. Trump won Michigan over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 0.3 points—the first time the state had voted for a Republican candidate since 1988.
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