Donald Trump reiterated his apparent love for buxom bums during a rally in Michigan on Sunday where he encouraged the crowd to compliment rapper Nicki Minaj’s behind.

Trump’s cheeky comments about Minaj’s derriere came as he explained his recent observation on the Republican Ohio senator Jon Husted’s rear end. Earlier in October, Trump said of the former college football player: “I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole – and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these, like, claws.

“You are a great athlete,” Trump also said to Husted. “Congratulations.”

Trump was speaking at the rally to support Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican Senate candidate. The Michigan race between Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed remains neck and neck as both political parties scramble for control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. But he couldn’t resist his purported other favorite topic.

This afternoon, Trump said the media buzz about these comments was “fake news” neglecting the athletic context of his statements. Trump said he had just learned Husted was a college athlete when he was “looking at him up and down, and I’m studying him”.

Trump insisted his subsequent crack was “in fun”. “I said: I looked at his ass, and I’ve never done that with a man before. It’s true. Off the record, women yes, men no, OK.”

Trump then shouted out Minaj, who the New York Post said was donned in “head-to-toe Gucci” today. Minaj, the paper also reported, was seen walking with Trump after leaving Air Force One.

“By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before – Nicki Minaj,” Trump said, prompting celebratory woos from the crowd. “That’s hard to miss. That – stand up! That’s hard to miss.

“OK, I’m going to get back to my story, Nicki,” Trump continued following still more cheers. “I hope Nicki wasn’t insulted, but we love Nicki. She’s been with us for a long time.”

Trump made statements about Husted’s tush just over a week ago in Kentucky.

“I examined his ass,” Trump said of Husted, who was not at the event. “And then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline. Studied him. He’s got a jawline.

“I then patted him on the shoulder, and it was like a piece of steel. I’m still recovering,” Trump said.

Trump also recently praised the appearance of Ed Gallrein, theRepublican congressional candidate from Kentucky.

“I needed somebody good, and this guy walks through the door,” Trump remarked of Gallrein, in describing his efforts to find a replacement for anti-Maga incumbent Thomas Massie. “I said, look at this beautiful guy.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why Trump has been discussing others’ bodies.

Trump’s comments come amid criticism of his language style, which some have likened to grotesquerie.

During a Saturday rally for El-Sayed, Barack Obama joked about Trump’s White House renovation efforts.

“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” the former president said.

Meanwhile, Trump said that the US-Canada trade war would soon be in America’s rear view.

“Canada has been ripping off the US for years. I had to do it,” Trump said of tariffs during the rally. “We’ll have that settled pretty soon. They’re willing to give us anything at this moment.”