Update: After this story was published, Trump was booked in Georgia, and his weight was reported as a shockingly svelte 215 pounds. The number was met with such skepticism that the historian Michael Beschloss posted a picture of the country’s heaviest president on X, and wrote, “President William Howard Taft wants you to know that he weights 120 pounds,” and the Washington Post reported that “the numbers may not be reliable.”
It sounds like a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. But it involves Donald Trump, so of course it’s actually real: Oddsmakers are taking bets on his weight upon surrender in Georgia on Thursday.
A betting site — BetOnline — is giving an “over/under” on a former president’s weight. Like it’s the Super Bowl.
The line is currently set at 278.5 pounds. That means gamblers can bet that if and when Trump steps onto the scale, he will weigh either less or more.
Notably, the line has gotten 16 pounds heavier since it became available on the betting site on Aug. 15. It was originally set at 262.5 pounds, but that turned out to be too low, according to Dave Mason, sportsbook manager with the firm.
“Just about all of the early bettors took the over and kept betting it even though we kept increasing the weight,” he wrote in a direct message on X, the platform formally known as Twitter, to a reporter on Aug. 23.
How could it go up that much in such a short time? Let’s just say that Trump’s weight, like everything else about him, is so divisive that it warps reality.
“Part of the reasoning [for the lower weight] was that historically the betting public has been pro-Trump on various markets,” Mason said. “So we wanted to be a little more conservative with his weight thinking pro-Trump bettors would bet under.
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“We were flat out wrong,” he added, “as the public pounded on the over and we had to keep adding pounds to the former president’s total.” (The payout for the original bet is unaffected by any changes in the line, Mason said.)
Interest in Trump’s weight is growing as his Thursday arraignment nears, and with it, the booking process that typically includes not only a mugshot but also gathering personal information, including the defendant’s weight.
As literally the entire world may recall, Trump’s weight first sparked a frenzy in 2018, when the White House physician at the time, Navy Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, held a press conference after Trump’s medical exam and essentially announced that Trump was not clinically obese.
Trump reportedly stood 6′3′' and weighed 239 pounds — measurements that put his BMI at 29.9, conveniently just under the 30.0 marker for being considered obese.
But the anti-Trumpers weren’t buying it. “Has anyone coined “girther” for those who believe the president weighs more than his doctor reports?” the MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked on Twitter, now X.
Girther, of course, was playing off “birther” — a term used to describe people, most prominently Trump, who claimed falsely that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States and questioned the legitimacy of his birth certificate.
(Hayes quickly clarified that he was not fat shaming the president, but rather his self-delusion. “Not a joke about his weight!” he tweeted. “About people’s refusal to believe something. I never ever joke about people’s weight.”)
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Trump’s reported weight triggered unflattering comparisons with athletes who were allegedly around the same height and weight. “Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is listed at 6-3 and 230 pounds,” The Kansas City Star sniped.
Alas, a year after Jackson’s glowing bill of health, a second doctor reported that Trump’s weight had risen to 243 pounds, putting him into the officially obese category.
But no matter, Trump famously attacks other people for being fat. Earlier this month, for example, at a rally in New Hampshire, he mocked rival Chris Christie.
“Don’t call him a fat pig,” Trump playfully — and disingenuously — admonished an audience member who shouted out during a speech, according to NBC News. “You can’t do that.”
In 2019, also at a New Hampshire campaign rally, Trump heckled a supporter he initially mistook as a protester. “That guy’s got a serious weight problem,” he said, apparently singling out a man being escorted from the venue by security. “Go home, start exercising.”
His obsession with (other people’s) weight is so notable that it’s become a matter of scholarly research.
“I think Trump sees himself as a predator,” said Christopher Forth, a University of Kansas professor of history and dean’s professor of humanities, in a press release on his work.
“He sees predatory behavior as good and natural for him,” Forth said. “This is why he’s able to lampoon fat men as being soft and weak.”
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Trump’s attacks on women whom he perceives as overweight are less because of weakness than a rebuke of their sexual attractiveness, Forth added.
Given all that’s going on, the question of Trump’s weight may have remained a secondary matter in the public’s mind — if not for his alleged attempts to interfere with the 2020 election results, and because of that, the indictments and looming arraignment.
His weight has yet to be revealed, but on Instagram, some commenters think he’s far surpassed even the increased over/under betting line.
“He’s pushing three bills, easy,” one person wrote.
Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Follow her @bethteitell.