Donald Trump's Drama-Filled History With Tic Tacs, Explained

Donald Trump loves his Tic Tacs, so when he needed a visual prop to demonstrate the effects of inflation to a crowd of supporters, he turned to the mild breath mints.

Tic Tacs come in a shade of orange, just like Trump's skin, so no wonder he prefers them over breath fresheners that pack more of a punch. They can also be purchased in adorable mini boxes. During a June 2024 campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump pulled a standard-sized container of the mints out of his jacket and held it up. He then showed the crowd one of the mini boxes. "This is what inflation does," he said (via PBS NewsHour). According to Forbes, Trump grossly inflated the inflation problem by telling several fibs about it, but the crowd went wild over his Tic Tac gag. His special guest, former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, was probably thankful that Trump had the Tic Tacs in his possession when the ex-president invited him up on stage and greeted him with a smooch. "I don't kiss men. But I kissed him," Trump said. Arpaio didn't look like he enjoyed the experience much.

It's odd that Trump would use Tic Tacs, of all things, as a prop — after all, the candy is a reminder of one of his most controversial moments.

Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, leaked footage of Donald Trump dishing out some sexist, vulgar boasting about how he treats women went viral. At the time, it seemed like Donald's Access Hollywood tape scandal could have been a campaign killer, but enough Americans shrugged and voted for him anyway to put him in the White House.

In addition to talking about groping women's genitals in the 2006 recording, Donald told Access Hollywood host Billy Bush that he wanted to plant a wet one on the actor they were about to greet together, "Days of Our Lives" star Arianne Zucker. "I've got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them," Donald said. "It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait." At the time, "The Apprentice" host was married to Melania Trump, who had to publicly defend Donald after the tape dropped.

Thankfully, Donald didn't try to kiss Zucker without her permission, but Bush played wingman by asking her to give his companion a hug. Zucker later shared her thoughts about the tape in a "Today" interview. "They are offensive comments for women, period. ... I think men can learn from this of how not to be in front of women or when they're speaking about women," she stated. The Tic Tac company also had something to say about the footage.

Tic Tacs clearly did not have enough of an icy cool zing to freshen up Donald Trump's foul mouth on that fateful day, and the brand decided that his endorsement was not one it desired. In one of the more surreal moments of the 2016 presidential election, the official Tic Tac USA account on X, formerly known as Twitter, addressed Trump's misogynistic remarks in a statement. "Tic Tac respects all women," it read. "We find the recent statements and behavior completely inappropriate and unacceptable."

Trump is a longtime Tic Tac fan, so being denounced by the brand had to sting a little. In 2016, two of his former housekeepers told The Washington Post that they were told to make sure that a drawer in his bedroom always contained a pair of unopened Tic Tac containers, and they had to be the white variety. More curiously, he requested a third half-empty box. Why this was a must remains a mystery but may explain why he's so fascinated by the mini boxes that hold fewer mints. It seems he discovered them in May 2024 at the Minnesota GOP Lincoln-Reagan Dinner, which is where he added the Tic Tac schtick to his shrinkflation speech. He held up one of the containers and said, "I just got this today. Somebody handed it to me, not as a joke" (via Forbes.) Now, he wants people to associate the mints with his political opponent, deeming them "Biden Tic Tacs."