Donald Trump referred to White House press secretary Jen Psaki as “the woman with the really beautiful red hair” at a rally in Michigan.
Mr Trump, at the rally on Saturday, mentioned reports that Ms Psaki will resign from her role at the White House to join a news network.
“The woman with the really beautiful red hair, she left and she was hit so hard by the military because they knew I was right. The military understood I was right,” Mr Trump said.
The former president then mockingly referred to MSNBC, the network reports said Ms Psaki will join, as “MSDNC” and claimed she was in negotiations for the job because of the colour of her hair.
“You know she’s going to MSDNC, you know that, right?” Mr Trump said.
“They need a redhead! They don’t have a redhead over there so they need a redhead.”
Ms Psaki, who returned to the White House after isolating at home with Covid, did not confirm plans for her future.
“I have nothing to confirm about my length of public service or planned service or anything about consideration about next plans,” she had said during a Friday press briefing.
At the rally, Mr Trump also claimed Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he was still president.
He said he was surprised at the invasion and thought Mr Putin was just negotiating a “great deal”.
“I thought he was negotiating. He had 150,000 soldiers on the border, I thought he was going to make a great deal,” he said.
The one-term president then said Moscow moved ahead with the invasion because of the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“I think that when he (Putin) saw what happened in Afghanistan, the way we ran, we didn’t to have one soldier killed there in 18 months, I said Abdul there are going to be no more of our soldiers killed. Not one person was killed for 18 months and Biden even said that,” Mr Trump said.
“Then we lost 13, but they don’t talk about how horribly so many of them were wounded. This invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if I was in the White House, would never have happened, not ever,” he added.
