Donald Trump will reportedly be interviewed by The Undertaker this week after agreeing to appear as a guest on the WWE legend’s podcast.
The 78-year-old Trump is trying to get as much media attention as possible ahead of next month’s presidential election, when he will battle Kamala Harris for the top job in the White House.
And in his bid to outdo Harris and reclaim the presidency, the Republican leader will try to win over the wrestling community when he joins The Undertaker — whose real name is Mark Calaway — on his “Six Feet Under” podcast.
According to political reporter Alex Isenstadt, via @WrestleOpsCalaway , he will interview Trump on his podcast this week.
The former president — who doubled down on his attack on Kamala’s race this week — has a long history with the WWE and has appeared on several shows amid his close relationship with co-founder Vince McMahon.
He even played a major role in a storyline at WrestleMania 23 in 2007, when he defeated McMahon in a Battle of the Billionaires match, leading to the former WWE boss shaving his head.
Wrestling great Hulk Hogan also appeared at the Republican National Convention this past summer to support him.
Trump clearly doesn’t have the support of everyone associated with the world-famous wrestling promotion, however.
Former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista took on the American tycoon, mocking him as weak and overweight in a video on Jimmy Kimmel’s show this week.”
Is he the strong Alpha Man that a lot of voters think he is? According to one of the strongest guys I know, he’s not,” Kimmel said as he introduced the sketch after saying “young, straight, white men love Donald Trump” and “see him as a ‘macho, macho man.'”
It started in a boxing ring, where Bautista showed off his physical prowess and declared, “Guys, we need to talk.”
“A lot of guys seem to think Donald Trump is some kind of tough guy. He’s not.”
Trump has a long history with the WWE, having appeared at several events in the past
The Undertaker, whose real name is Mark Calaway, will question him sometime this week
He then went through a series of one-liners. “Look at him. He wears more makeup than Dolly Parton,” Bautista said, as the camera panned to a tanned image of Trump.
He says “that guy’s scared of birds” and “made his dad pay a doctor to say his little feet hurt so he could dodge the draft” — a reference to the bone spurs that kept him out of Vietnam but haven’t kept him off the golf course.
The video shows unflattering shots of Trump’s “belly,” which he compares to a “garbage bag full of buttermilk.”
Other jokes center on Trump’s challenges with an umbrella, the superhero-like trading cards he sells and his challenges to sip from tiny bottles of water, to laughter from the Jimmy Kimmel Live audience.
That’s been compared to Bautista, who played Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, performing various feats of strength, ranting that Trump “cheats at golf” and “has big boobs like Dolly Parton.”
Some of the insults aren’t appropriate for all ages, but Bautista also says he’s “moody, sulks, throws tantrums” and “bows down to Putin.”
The joke drew laughs from the studio audience, but it speaks to a vulnerability that Kamala Harris takes quite seriously: the erosion of support among men.
It’s part of the landscape of an election that pits the candidate seeking to become the first female president against Trump, who has made the “fight, fight, fight” champion and surviving an assassin’s bullet a central part of his reelection campaign.
Trump has long praised the prowess of the U.S. military, saying he took out a top Iranian soldier and accused rivals of being “weak” or “losers.” His convention hosted Hulk Hogan, and his rallies feature James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
He holds a 10-point lead among men in the latest Wall Street Journal poll. Harris is building a strong lead among women, where abortion is a major issue.