President Donald Trump’s attempt to revive the long-defunct Presidential Fitness Test veered into political scandal and absurdity Thursday after he launched the children’s health initiative alongside a convicted sex offender, boasting that there’s “nobody like him.”
It was meant to be a nostalgic salute to American fitness. Instead, it became a microcosm of the Trump presidency: chaotic, controversial, and colliding with decades of unresolved questions about power, accountability, and abuse.
In front of cameras, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools. Framed as a national push for “discipline, strength, and American excellence,” the initiative was rolled out at a Roosevelt Room event meant to evoke Cold War-era unity. What it evoked instead was outrage.
That anger was not about the test itself, though it has its critics, but about who Trump chose to stand beside him.
Former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, 66, stood just feet from Trump during the launch. Taylor is a registered sex offender who, charged with statutory rape in 2011, pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and patronizing a prostitute after paying for sex with a trafficked 16-year-old girl, ESPN reported. He claimed he believed she was 19. He was sentenced to six years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. In 2024, he was arrested again in Florida for failing to update his address on the state registry, a repeat violation, ESPN reported.
Trump not only invited Taylor but handed him the microphone. “I’m proud to be on this team,” Taylor said. “I don’t know why. I don’t know what we are supposed to be doing, but I’m here to serve.”
“Nobody like him,” Trump said about Taylor after he spoke
The visual, a convicted sex offender helping launch a federal program aimed at children, was jarring. The reaction was immediate and fierce.
“You literally can’t make this shit up,” the Republicans Against Trump account posted on X. “Donald Trump launched a youth sports initiative at the White House today, appearing alongside Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct involving a trafficked 16-year-old girl. A new low.”
American Bridge 21st Century, the Democratic-aligned opposition research group, wrote: “Today, Donald Trump launched a program for kids at the White House alongside disgraced footballer Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender who raped a 16-year-old girl. He’s not even hiding that fact that he’s okay hanging out with sexual predators that target underage girls.”
The timing only deepened the damage.
Two days earlier, Trump had invoked the name of Virginia Giuffre, one of prolific late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s most well-known accusers, who died by suicide earlier this year. In response to a reporter’s question about his past friendship with Epstein, Trump said Epstein had “stolen” Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago. For weeks, Trump and his administration have struggled to move on from public outrage among his MAGA base over claims the government was covering up details about Epstein. For years, right-wing podcasters, influencers, and members of Trump’s family have hinted at a vast government conspiracy that Trump would root out if he were back in power.
“It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago,” Giuffre’s family said in a statement. “She wasn’t stolen. She was preyed upon.”
The White House defended Trump’s comment, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt stating he was simply answering a question and reminding reporters that Trump had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago “for being a creep to female employees.” No explanation was given for Taylor’s invitation to the Roosevelt Room.
The President’s Council on Physical Fitness was created in 1956 under Dwight Eisenhower, but the Presidential Fitness Test, as most Americans remember it, was introduced under Lyndon Johnson in 1966. It included a one-mile run, sit-ups, shuttle runs, push-ups or pull-ups, and the infamous sit-and-reach flexibility test. Students in the top 15 percent nationwide earned a Presidential Physical Fitness Award.
But the test was quietly retired in 2013, after decades of criticism from fitness and child development experts. Critics said the test emphasized competition and humiliation over education and inclusivity.
“Trump, trying desperately to change the subject from his association with underage sex, brings out his secret weapon: Lawrence Taylor,” one user posted on X.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Donald Trump praises registered sex offender invited to speak at White House event for children’s fitness
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