House Speaker: Everyone Relax About Trump's Palmer Joke

Donald Trump's brief stint working at a McDonald's drive-thru may have been the biggest political photo op of the weekend, but the former president's wink-wink comments about late golfing legend Arnold Palmer also percolated in the headlines. Most notably, House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Trump over them on Sunday. The details:

• "Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women," Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, reports NPR. "This is a guy that was all man." Speaking in Latrobe, where Palmer was born, Trump added: "When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, 'Oh my God. That's unbelievable.'"

• On Sunday, Jake Tapper grilled Johnson about the comments on CNN, per Bloomberg. "So he has fun at the rallies," the House speaker—who stands on the polar opposite of the NSFW spectrum—said on State of the Union. "He says things that are off the cuff."
• Still, critics on the left such as Sen. Bernie Sanders said Trump's comments would repel voters. "I think you have a lot of Americans, whether you are conservative, whether you're progressive or moderate, who say, 'Really?'" he said on CNN, per the AP. "We have major issues facing this country. Is this the kind of human being that we want as president of the United States?"
• On a more serious subject, Tapper pressed Johnson on how Trump spoke of Democrats as the "enemy from within," singling out Rep. Adam Schiff and "the Pelosis" in particular, notes Axios. "If a Democratic presidential candidate said that you and your wife were evil, and that the military should be used against you, I would say that's disgusting," Tapper said. But Johnson said Trump was not talking about deploying the National Guard against Democrats but against "marauding gangs of dangerous, violent people" in the streets. He defended Trump as the "most maligned political figure in US history."
• At the same Latrobe rally where he spoke about Palmer, Trump also referred to Kamala Harris as a "s--t" vice president, and Harris told MSNBC that the former president "demeans the office" with his lack of decorum. "Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. He has not earned the right. He's not earned the right, and that's why he's going to lose," Harris told Al Sharpton on Sunday, per NBC News.

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