President Donald Trump appears to listen as Nicki Minaj speaks during a campaign rally in Port Huron, Michigan, October 25, 2026.AP Photo/Julia Demaree
After spending the last month’s run-up to the midterm elections siccing the Department of Justice on his Black, female political opponents, President Donald Trump graciously allowed a Black woman to join his sycophantic entourage at a recent rally in Michigan: rapper Nicki Minaj.
This wasn’t Minaj’s first public appearance in support of Trump; she accepted a White House invitation to speak at the United Nations last year. But it was the first rally where the president made a talking point out of her…anatomy.
“I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nicki Minaj,” said Trump, as the crowd hooted and hollered in approval. “That’s hard to miss.”
He then licked his lips and told Minaj to stand. She did, smiling and waving to the crowd in a moment that I can only assume is making bell hooks turn in her grave like a rotisserie chicken.
The entire interaction only fueled rumors that Minaj is slated to become the new White House press secretary after Katie Zacharia’s historically brief tenure, gossip that was directly referenced in a tweet by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung:
It’s hard to say whether the Trump administration is seriously considering Minaj for the position. But what’s clear is that Trump’s “admiration” of Minaj’s backside isn’t an isolated instance of sexism; it’s an example of white supremacy’s centuries-long legacy of fetishizing and exploiting Black women’s bodies.
Trump’s comments reminded many commenters of the treatment of Sarah (also known as Sara or Saartjie) Baartman, an enslaved woman born in the late 1700s, who was paraded around in European “freak shows” and circuses where people ogled her large derriere. Dubbed the Hottentot Venus, Baartman would wear next to nothing while she was locked in a cage, with a “trainer” ordering her to sit and stand “in a similar way that circus animals are ordered.”
After her death at the age of 26, Georges Cuvier, a famed naturalist who believed Baartman was the link between humans and animals, reportedly made a cast of her body before her autopsy. He then pickled her brain and genitals in formaldehyde, which would go on to be displayed alongside Cuvier’s cast at the Paris Museum of Man until 1974, 159 years after she died.
The exploitation of Baartman is often cited as one of the most clear-cut examples of the fetishization of Black women’s bodies, encompassing the morbid curiosity, hypersexual stereotyping, and blatant dehumanization that Black women face to this day. This fetishization falls under the umbrella of misogynoir, a form of sexism that’s propelled by racism and specifically affects Black women and girls. And Trump perpetuates it constantly.
From calling ex-White House aide Omarosa “that dog” during his first term to describing then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris as “a mad woman” with so much “anger”, Trump loves leaning into negative stereotypes when tearing down Black women. But none more so than denouncing their intelligence. And the evidence of this is more than anecdotal. It’s backed up by data.
In 2025, Mother Jones correspondent David Corn interviewed the director of a research group whose team found that Black women are overwhelmingly the demographic on the receiving end of Trump’s “low IQ” insults:
This team examined his Truth Social posts for the past four years, ending on April 10. In that stretch, Trump called individuals and communities “low IQ” at least 50 times, and 60 percent of these instances involved Black public figures and legislators. These targets included Vice President Kamala Harris; Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.); the Rev. Al Sharpton; New York Attorney General Letitia James; and political strategist Donna Brazile.
The tilt is clear. Trump reaches for this characterization more often when he’s denouncing Black people. Notice, though, that it’s not just Black people but Black women who draw much of Trump’s wrath.
Trump’s comments on Minaj’s body may seem on their face like run-of-the-mill sexism. But in the larger context of the president’s penchant for misogynoir, they paint an even more unsettling picture. And as we can see from the raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home to the arrest of Sen. Louise Lucas, his animosity towards Black women leads to tangible consequences.
As Nicki Minaj, who has much more agency than the enslaved Baartman, willingly plays the helpful Jezebel for Trump and his goons, she is doing nothing but aiding and abetting an administration that’s proven over and over and over again that they despise women who look like her.
