What past incidents involved public remarks about Donald Trump's personal hygiene?
Executive summary
Multiple well-documented episodes in recent years have involved public remarks about Donald Trump’s personal hygiene: attack ads and commentary accusing him of emitting a bad odor, media and pundit jabs alleging specific smells, and reporting that Trump himself obsessively enforces hygiene rules inside his teams — a mix of external mockery and internal behavior that together shaped the public discourse around his cleanliness [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Lincoln Project’s “#TrumpSmells” ad and the weaponization of odor in political advertising
In late 2023 the Lincoln Project ran an online ad campaign popularly tagged “#TrumpSmells” that directly accused Donald Trump of having a noticeable body odor, drawing attention and controversy as an explicit personal-attack tactic in modern political advertising [1]. Forbes covered the ad as emblematic of a broader turn toward personal and sensory attacks in politics and quoted communications scholars who said hygiene should be irrelevant to policy debates even as it has become fair game in today’s partisan environment [1]. The Lincoln Project’s agenda — a Republican-aligned group opposing Trump — makes clear the ad was political persuasion rather than investigative reporting, and coverage of the campaign framed it as a deliberate escalation in negative messaging [1].
2. TV and social-media commentators amplifying allegations of odor
Cable and social-media commentators extended the line of attack in ways that mixed satire and assertion; one example cited in reporting was a CNN commentator’s quip describing Trump’s alleged smell as “soiled diapers, Axe Body Spray and hotdog burps,” a claim reported by Newsweek that circulated online and provoked both ridicule and defense from Trump supporters [2]. These remarks tend to be anecdotal and sourced to “reliable sources” in commentary rather than to verifiable forensic evidence, leaving them as opinionated assaults that function rhetorically more than empirically [2].
3. Trump’s own public comments about others’ hygiene — the Beverly Hills remark
Donald Trump has likewise invoked smell and hygiene as political barbs aimed at others: at a Republican gathering he claimed that wealthy residents of Beverly Hills “generally speaking don’t smell so good” and asserted that water restrictions force poor hygiene — comments reported as false and bizarre by local outlets covering the speech [4]. That episode demonstrates how hygiene or odor can be used by Trump himself as a derisive shorthand to question an opponent’s authenticity or morality, and it was covered by ABC7 as part of a broader litany of misleading claims in the speech [4].
4. Reporting on Trump as a germaphobe complicates the narrative
Long-form reporting about Trump’s private habits presented an apparent contradiction: profiles and investigative pieces described him as unusually hygiene-conscious or germaphobic during his presidency, enforcing cleaning routines and expressing strong aversions to germs inside the White House — a portrayal reported in outlets summarizing Poltico and South China Morning Post reporting [3]. That reporting complicates public claims about odor by showing a public figure who both emphasizes cleanliness in personal behavior and is the subject of accusations about smelling bad, suggesting motive and inconsistency are at play in the public conversation [3].
5. Motives, credibility, and the limits of available evidence
The incidents above show a mix of politically motivated satire, partisan advertising, punditry and personal rhetoric rather than forensic determinations about bodily odor; the Lincoln Project ad and commentator quips clearly serve political and entertainment agendas, while Trump’s own use of smell as an insult functions rhetorically in campaigning [1] [2] [4]. Reporting that Trump enforces strict hygiene inside his circles introduces an alternative explanation — that hygiene is a salient attribute for him personally — but none of the sources present objective measurements of body odor, and available public reporting stops short of empirical proof [3]. Absent direct scientific testing or consistent eyewitness corroboration documented in reliable reporting, assertions about actual personal odor remain in the realm of allegation and rhetoric [1] [2] [4].
6. What the pattern reveals about modern political attack lines
Taken together, these episodes illustrate how intimate, sensory claims (odor, hygiene) have become politically useful: they are cheap to convey, memorable, and carry social stigma that can stick even when evidence is thin, and they are deployed by adversaries and by Trump himself to demean opponents or deflect scrutiny [1] [4]. Readers should weigh the partisan source and rhetorical purpose behind each claim — whether ad, gag, or insult — and recognize that reportage so far documents the existence of repeated public remarks and attacks about Trump’s hygiene more than it documents an objective truth about his personal odor [1] [2] [3].