What's Really Going On With Donald Trump's Pants?

Oh yes, folks, he's back. Donald "Kung Flu" Trump and all of his red-tied glory once again took center stage on June 6, 2021, following a six-month hiatus in public appearances after being told "You're Fired!" by the American public. This time, though, it wasn't to tell his former staff to "slow down" coronavirus testing (per CNN), validate an insurrection on Capitol Hill that left four dead (per ABC), defund the Environmental Protection Agency (per The New York Times), flout the "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" poem on the Statue of Liberty by demonizing "rapist" Mexicans and building a border wall, grab women by the p****, or... you know what: it's all just too exhausting to recount.

At least if Trump is going to display his face in public, it's for comedic purposes. Or, in this case, if he's going to display his heaping case of front butt (Google that term at your own risk).

That's right, as countless news sources recount — we're going to go with the Intelligencer — Trump appeared at the annual North Carolina Republican Party convention wearing pants (thankfully), except they looked, well, backwards. Footage emerged from the convention zooming in on Trump's crotch — a disturbing decision, admittedly — and showed lots of little wrinkles climbing up into the crack. There seemed to be a seam rather than a zipper, and an approximately Big Mac-sized bulge.

So what exactly happened? Did Trump flip his pants before he tugged them up?

Unfortunately for comedy's sake, Snopes has reported that no, Trump was not in fact wearing his pants backwards — it just really, really looked like it. #TrumpPants trended on Twitter for much of Sunday, subjecting the former president to an absolute cavalcade of savagery that included jokes about the old hip-hop outfit Kriss Kross (they wore their clothes backwards), Mel Brooks' reversed butt in "Spaceballs," elastic suit pants, pillow stuffing, "vintage mermaid skirts," Mar-a-Lago clothing starter packs, and more (meme compilations are on Newsweek, The Wrap, and others). Even Luke Skywalker himself, beloved actor Mark Hamill, got in on the fun with his #DiaperDon-tagged "He's clearly on the 'no fly' list" dad joke zinger (on Twitter). How Snopes came to its closely-surveilled conclusion about Trump's properly-facing trousers blessedly remains a mystery.

Perhaps the crinkled undercarriage comes from Trump's lack of a pants steamer, which in case you didn't know, was quite the priority over the duration of his presidential campaign. As former Trump press secretary Hope Hicks will attest, Trump was all about his finely-pressed finery on the campaign trail. As Newsweek says, she used to steam Trump's pants. While he was wearing them. On his private jet.

According to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in his book "Let Trump Be Trump," Trump would bellow, "Get the machine!" (comedic gold be praised: he called it "the machine") and then curse Hope out if she didn't leave his crotch creaseless.