With all due respect, the look that Prince William sported at the starry reopening of Notre-Dame in Paris this month was nothing special: a well-tailored overcoat, a dark blue tie, a pressed white shirt. And, naturally, his new beard.
But that simple outfit did not fail to wow one luminary.
“He looked really, very handsome last night,” President-elect Donald J. Trump said about the future king of England, according to The New York Post. “Some people look better in person? He looked great. He looked really nice, and I told him that.”
His praise was just the latest instance in which Mr. Trump, 78, had complimented another man’s looks, part of a larger pattern of obsession he has with the personal appearance of individuals. That includes during the presidential campaign, when Mr. Trump often waxed poetic about the pilots posted to Air Force One, during his first term, likening them to taller versions of Tom Cruise.
“These guys are specimens,” he said during a late October interview with Joe Rogan. “Like perfect specimens.”
Mr. Trump’s propensity for calling attention to men’s looks dates back decades. (He lauded his brother Fred’s handsomeness in his 1987 memoir “The Art of the Deal.”) Newspapers and other publications have also noted his own attractiveness. But his candor about male beauty has seemingly become more pronounced during his three campaigns for the presidency, most commonly arising in his freewheeling rally speeches.
In the last three months alone, Mr. Trump has praised the looks of a sheriff in Tempe, Ariz.; a Mexican government negotiator; Shinzo Abe, a former leader of Japan; Senator Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri; and Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, who he noted had lost weight. (“You look so handsome,” he said about Mr. Pompeo.) He also famously alluded to the size of genitalia of the deceased golfer Arnold Palmer, whose looks Mr. Trump has also apparently approved of.
“They look like Arnold Palmer,” Mr. Trump said about a group of gun-toting security officials at an event in October. “Can’t look better than Arnold.”
Mr. Trump’s focus on being easy on the eye seems to extend to personnel decisions, as he has an apparent desire for those serving under him to fit the mold of “central casting,” a superficial but significant strategy of finding telegenic surrogates who look the part, regardless of their actual job qualifications.
Cases in point: Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense after his run as weekend host on Fox News; and Mehmet Oz, also known as Dr. Oz of daytime television fame, tapped to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mr. Trump has also spoken glowingly of the looks of Scott Bessent, his choice for Treasury secretary, who would be serving in his first government job after a long career in finance.
Such affection for people he finds attractive can also backfire: The president-elect’s first choice for attorney general — Matt Gaetz, who Mr. Trump said was part of “a seriously good-looking couple” — was the subject of a recently released House Ethics Committee report, accusing him of repeatedly paying for sex, including with an underage girl.
(Mr. Gaetz has denied the accusations and withdrawn as a pick. He referred to his own looks during a speech in Phoenix, saying he had thought that he would “be replaced by someone less attractive.” But, he said, “instead, we got Pam Bondi, who is brilliant and lovely.”)
Experts in masculine communication and male psychology say that Mr. Trump’s comfort with complimenting his fellow men could stem from a complicated stew of self-confidence, self-aggrandizement, showmanship and some less flattering personality traits.
Alon Gratch, a clinical psychologist and the author of “If Men Could Talk: Translating the Secret Language of Men,” said that Mr. Trump’s political style — fawning over his favorites and fans, lapping up their affection — was, among other things, a classic indicator of a narcissist’s need for social conquest.
“It’s always about seducing people,” Dr. Gratch said, adding: “He wants to charm you, he wants to please you. And a compliment, I think, serves that purpose.”
Mr. Trump’s rally attendees have often been recipients of his admiration, part of something that comedians would call crowd work — that is, interacting with their audience, a practice as old as politics itself. In October, Mr. Trump joshed with a retired union worker at a town hall-style meeting in Lancaster, Penn.
“Doesn’t he look handsome?” Mr. Trump said. “He’s a much better-looking guy than I am.”
Whether that sort of comment is false modesty or flat-out pandering is up for debate.
Jett Stone, a clinical psychologist and the author of “Quiet Your Mind,” a book about the way men overthink, said Mr. Trump’s attention to other men’s looks could be cast in a positive light, noting that “sometimes it’s about building bonds with other men and signaling one’s security with their masculinity.”
However, Dr. Stone said, there can be a more negative explanation in that a man who compliments another man may intend to put the speaker “in the same camp” as the recipient, something that can signal “some inadequacy or some fragility or insecurity that you’re compensating for.”
Mr. Trump is also seemingly aware of his political opponents’ good looks, such as those of Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California, a Kennedy-esque leader — and possible 2028 presidential candidate. The president-elect gave him a derogatory nickname despite his electoral popularity in his home state.
Mr. Trump, of course, is also known to flog his adversaries for their appearances or his perceptions of them: This month, he posted a digitally created image of former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, an ally turned antagonist, eating McDonald’s delivered by drones. (He also once mocked his pick for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, as Little Marco, because of his height.) More pointedly, women have often been the target of his scorn.
Michael Kimmel, a leading scholar on masculinity and the author of “Manhood in America,” said that men often judged other men — think playful, yet cutting insults tossed about in a locker room — in what’s known as “homosocial” banter or communication.
“It strikes me that what Trump is doing is grabbing that mantle,” Mr. Kimmel said. “He’s doing the gender policing all the time. He’s criticizing, sizing up, diminishing others. He’s commenting on everybody else’s looks. And so he is the one who has the power.”
Mr. Kimmel added that “masculinity is very often a kind of gendered performance.”
“And the performance is really for other men,” he said. “We want to be ‘a man among men.’ We want to be a ‘man’s man.’”
Some of Mr. Trump’s love of encomium might also simply fit in his broader sense of his own self-worth, experts say. During his speech in Phoenix, for instance, Mr. Trump praised the looks of Joe Arpaio, a former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., and a local police officer who was shot in the line of duty.
But the biggest shout-outs often went to himself, including a reference to a promotional cap that reads “Trump was right about everything.”
“And I don’t want to brag,” he said in Phoenix, “but we were right about just about everything.”
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