Trump calls Sunita Williams 'woman with wild, good, solid head of hair', asks Musk to aid stranded astronauts

Williams and Wilmore were originally on an eight-day mission to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June 2024

While discussing the efforts to bring back NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months, US President Donald Trump made a lighthearted remark about Williams’ hair.

During his address in the Oval Office, the US President promised to bring back the two astronauts back to Earth after nine months at the International Space Station (ISS).

“We have two astronauts that are stuck in space. I have asked Elon (Musk), I said, ‘Do me a favour. Can you get them out?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He is preparing to go up, I think, in two weeks,” Trump said. “And I see the woman with the wild hair, good, solid head of hair she’s got. There’s no kidding, there’s no games with her hair.”

Williams (59) and Wilmore were originally on an eight-day mission to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June 2024. However, technical problems, including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions, made the Starliner unsafe for their return.

DOOCY: What is your message to the astronauts stuck in space?POTUS: "We love you and we're coming up to get you and you shouldn't have been up there so long. The most incompetent President in our history has allowed that to happen to you." pic.twitter.com/9Lwxeal6ZX

Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 6, 2025

On bringing back the two Starliner astronauts, Trump said, “They have been left up there.  I hope they like each other, maybe they'll love each other. I don't know. But they've been left up there. Think of it."

Trump said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is “right now preparing a ship to go up” and get them.

Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, posted on X that “the astronauts were only supposed to be up there for 8 days and now have been there for 8 months.” He claimed that SpaceX could have brought them back six months ago but was not allowed to do so by the Biden administration. “President Trump asked to bring them back as soon as possible, and we are doing so,” Musk said.