White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the president “wants to ensure America’s future generations are strong, healthy, and successful,” and that all young Americans “have the opportunity to emphasize healthy, active lifestyles — creating a culture of strength and excellence for years to come.”
The president signed an order Thursday afternoon reestablishing the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, as well as the fitness test, which will be administered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Although the test is meant to encourage the nation’s youth to exercise, its reinstatement under Trump is odd, considering he reportedly doesn’t believe in the benefits of exercise.
In a 2015 New York Times magazine profile of Trump, he said, “All my friends who work out all the time, they’re going for knee replacements, hip replacements — they’re a disaster.” He went on to claim that when he stands in front of an audience for an hour, “That’s exercise.”
The president gave up most sports except golf after college because he believed that “the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted. So he didn’t work out,” according to the 2017 book, “Trump Revealed.”
Trump told Reuters in 2018 that he does indeed get more exercise than people might think.
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“I get exercise. I mean I walk, I this, I that,” Trump said. “I ran over to a building next door.”
HuffPost reached out to the White House for comment on the president’s theories on exercise, but no one immediately responded.
The Associated Press contributed to the writing of this story.