Trump mocked a man he thought was a protester for being overweight, but it turned out he was actually a supporter

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. President Donald Trump pats his bicep and pumps his fist at the end of his rally with supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S. August 15, 2019

• President Trump mocked a supporter for being overweight at a rally in New Hampshire on Thursday night, after mistaking him for a protester trying to disrupt the event.
• "That guy has got a serious weight problem. Go home, start exercising," he said.
• The man, Frank Dawson, a former police officer and Navy veteran, took the insult in his stride, telling Fox News: "Everything's good. I love the guy."
• A report by a White House doctor in February found the president is clinically obese, though in good health. 
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President Trump mocked a supporter for being overweight at a rally in New Hampshire on Thursday night, after mistaking him for a protester trying to disrupt the event.

As Trump was delivering his speech to supporters in the Southern New Hampshire University Arena in Manchester, protesters started heckling him from one of the stands and were led away by security. 

"That guy has got a serious weight problem. Go home, start exercising," Trump said, mocking a man he thought was one of the protesters. 

"Gotta bigger problem than I do. Got a bigger problem than all of us," Trump added, in an apparent reference to his own weight. "Now he goes home and his mom says: 'What the hell have you just done?'"

It turned out the man Trump singled out for criticism was one of his own supporters, who was trying to alert security and seize a sign from a protester.

As the protesters were being led out, Associated Press reported he started shaking his fist as a show of support for the president who thought he was one of the hecklers. 

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

A Trump supporter, right, tries to grab a protesters' sign as President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019, in Manchester, N.H.

Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs in a tweet said that Trump had likely mistaken one of his supporters for one of the three protesters being led away.

Fox News later interviewed the man, Frank Dawson, a former police officer and Navy veteran, who took the president's mockery in good spirit. 

"I think he thought I was part of it but I wasn't - I was the good part of it," remarked Dawson. "Everything's good. I love the guy. He's the best thing that ever happened to this country." 

Critics were quick to seize on Trump's mockery of the man, and reinforce the point that the president was ruled as being officially obese earlier in the year.

A report from a White House physical released in February found that the president had gained weight and is officially obese, though in good health, weighing 243 pounds. 

Trump's fondness for junk food and aversion to exercise is well known, and he reportedly fueled his 2016 presidential campaign on a diet of Diet Coke and McDonalds.