People Have Suggested That Donald Trump Stinks (Literally), but Is There Any Truth to That?

The president of the United States is one of the most powerful people in the world, and Donald Trump has been elected to that position twice in the past decade. It's a little strange, then, that there are also so many stories out there that suggest that the president might have a body odor problem.

These tidbits have come from multiple different people who have interacted with the president at one point or another, and all of it has left many people wondering whether Donald Trump stinks. Here's what we know.

The most specific evidence that the president is smelly comes from former Representative Adam Kinzinger, who discussed the president's body odor during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2024.

When Kimmel asked Kinzinger what the president smelled like, he got specific. “So, if you take, like, armpits, ketchup, makeup, and a little butt, it’s probably like that, all mixed up," he explained.

“A little bit of a pungent odor, I would say,” he added. “You definitely wouldn’t want to bottle it up and wear Trump cologne.”

The former representative, who was once a Republican but is fervently anti-Trump, said that people around the president were too scared to discuss the odor, but that it was apparent if you spent any time around it. He also added that he's smelled it himself on more than one occasion.

“He’d invite all of us into the Oval Office all the time, and it’s hard to avoid that," Kinzinger added. This came after he tweeted about Trump's smell, encouraging those who were going to meet with the president to wear a mask if they could.

Although Kinzinger is among the most reputable people to suggest that Trump smells, he's not the only person who has interacted with the president to make the comment.

MSNBC's Alex Wagner made a joke during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in which she suggested that he "smells like cooking oil."

Comedian Kathy Griffin, a famous Trump critic, once appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice, and apparently, she, too, noticed that the future president had a distinct odor.

"I did participate in two challenges. One I did because of my dear departed, beloved Joan Rivers," she tweeted in a post that has now been deleted, per Newsweek. "The other one I did because Trump paid me a bunch of money to spend the day with Liza Minnelli and host a challenge. Liza and I tried to ignore him, but he does smell really bad."

It seems like there might be some validity to the rumors that the president smells, although it's unclear exactly why that might be the case. Most Americans will never get the chance to smell the president up close and personal, but it's not like he doesn't have the means at his disposal to cover up any smell. Maybe it's intentional? We may never know for sure either why he smells, or how bad he might actually smell.