BURSTPresident Trump returned to public view on Tuesday after a weeklong break from appearances led to wild online speculation he was sick — or in the case of some baseless posts, even dead.
Trump was asked directly about reports he was dead during an Oval Office appearance discussing his decision to move Space Command to Alabama.
Trump, 79, responding to Fox News’s Peter Doocy, said he’d heard about the speculation that he was ill but hadn’t seen reports he was dead. Trump then called such reports “fake news.”
“I have heard, it’s sort of crazy. But last week I did numerous news conferences. All successful, they went very well, like this is going very well, and then I didn’t do any for two days and they said, ‘There must be something wrong with him,’” Trump said.
“No, I was very active over the weekend. They also knew I went out to visit some people at the club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River. No, I’ve been very active, actually, over the weekend. I didn’t hear that one. That’s pretty serious stuff,” Trump said.
Trump has been active in his second term, calling the press into the Oval Office almost daily to take questions. But after holding a marathon Cabinet meeting last Tuesday, he wasn’t heard from for the rest of the week.
That was enough to stir up questions online, particularly after photos of his bruised hands circulated earlier in the summer. The White House explained earlier this year that Trump suffered from chronic venous insufficiency, a condition that causes swelling in the legs and noticeable bruising on the hands.
The media was accused by the right during the Biden years of ignoring concerns about the former president’s health, and the script appears to have flipped, with loud voices on the left now pressing for more information on Trump’s health.
Former President Biden is the oldest president to serve in the nation’s history, but Trump was older than his predecessor at the time of their inaugurations and will break Biden’s oldest-to-serve record assuming he stays in office his full four years.
Reporters over the weekend sent pool reports about their glimpses of the president, describing what he was wearing to the golf course. On Friday, Trump sat down for an interview with The Daily Caller.
Trump World generally brushed off the speculation, with one insider saying, “As Shakespeare said — much ado about nothing.”
One former aide in Trump’s first term said the response from the White House to the rumors was “more annoyance than alarm.”
“But this is the reality of working for the oldest person ever inaugurated as president. Staff will constantly have to manage stories like this. They are going to have to get creative with their approach and do their best to block out the noise,” the source added.
Biden and his supporters, who have faced widespread backlash over the lack of transparency around the former president’s mental state, accused the Trump White House of not being transparent during the recent absence from public events.
“I think in August he spent 26 days doing public events or talking to press. So, to go down for six days and just have a slew of Truth Social posts that are very chaotic, and people can’t follow all of them is very concerning,” former Biden administration aide Meghan Hays said during an appearance on CNN’s “The Lead.”
“And I think that people have raised the question. The president could just be taking a few days down in August, which is normal for presidents to do. Or there could be actually something wrong,” she added. “The problem is we don’t know, and they’re not being transparent about it.”
Trump was active on Truth Social over the weekend, including on Sunday when he said, “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE.”
He responded to Rogan O’Handley — better known by his MAGA-friendly account on the social platform X, @DC_Draino — who called it a “comical double standard” when Trump wasn’t seen in public versus Biden.
“Joe Biden would go multiple days at a time without any public appearances and the media would say he’s ‘sharp’ and ‘top of his game,’” O’Handley said. “Meanwhile he was wearing diapers and napping. President Trump puts in more public work hours than any other POTUS in U.S. history and media freaks out if he disappears for 24 hours.”
What also added fuel to the fire were recent comments from Vice President Vance, who said in an interview with USA Today last week that Trump is in “incredibly good health” but that he would be able to step in if needed.
“If, God forbid, there’s a terrible tragedy, I can’t think of better on-the-job training than what I’ve gotten over the last 200 days,” Vance said.
The former aide in Trump’s first term said Vance is in a “no-win spot” and his comments can be taken out of context.
“He’s obviously been very intentional to avoid looking like he’s running for president already, but the closer we get to the midterms, the more pressure there is to show some signals. If he goes too far, though, it risks annoying Trump and being seen as overstepping,” the source said.
When an announcement from the president was on the schedule for 2 p.m. on Tuesday, some social media users questioned if it was resignation-related.
One parody pop culture account on X, Pop Base, claimed that roads around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., were closed for preparations for the president’s arrival.
Biden’s decline was largely around his mental state and stamina, with critics focusing on his speech and confusing or garbled comments. Pro-Biden influencers were focused on Trump’s physical decline.
“Donald Trump’s ankles are so swollen he looks like he’s wearing invisible ankle weights,” pro-Biden X user Chris Jackson said, sharing photographs of both presidents. “The man can barely move.”