Arnold Palmer’s daughter criticized former President Trump’s comments about her father as “unacceptable.”
Peg Palmer Wears, the daughter of the legendary late golfer, slammed the ex-president’s comments as “inappropriate” and “disrespectful” in an interview with ABC News, saying the Republican nominee’s rallygoers “deserve” to hear “substance” about Trump’s governing plan.
“Being at the airport, which is named for my dad, where he flew out of to go to work every day or every week, you know, to come there and talk about … hackneyed anecdotes from the locker room … seemed disrespectful and inappropriate to me,” Palmer Wears told ABC News on Monday.
Trump raised eyebrows Saturday during a campaign appearance in Latrobe, Pa., Palmer’s birthplace, when he discussed fellow golfers looking at Arnold Palmer in wonder when he came out of the locker room shower.
“Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women,” Trump said, according to The Associated Press. “This is a guy that was all man.”
“When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” he said. “I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”
Palmer’s daughter, who did not share whom she will vote for in the White House race, said Trump was “appropriating someone he admires to bolster his own image,” while adding that “people deserve better,” according to ABC News.
“The people coming to these rallies deserve substance about plans Trump has as a candidate, if he could elucidate on some of the threats he’s made to people,” Palmer Wears said. “I mean, these are important issues that should be discussed for people when they’re getting ready to vote, and using my dad to cover over the important things just seems unacceptable to me.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday why Trump discussed Palmer’s genitalia in the Keystone State.
“Jake, you seem to like that line a lot,” Johnson said.
“I don’t want to be talking about this, right,” Tapper responded. “Donald Trump is out there saying it.”
The Louisana Republican told Tapper he would “address it” and then compared the duration of Trump’s rallies to President Biden’s ability to hold one.
“There’s lines in a rally,” Johnson said Sunday. “When President Trump is at a rally, sometimes he’ll speak for two straight hours. You’re questioning his stamina, his mental acuity — Joe Biden couldn’t do that for five minutes.”
The Hill has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.