Trump responds to rumors about his death

During Labor Day weekend, rumors began circulating on social media about the alleged death of President Donald Trump. The speculation originated from his public absence for a couple of days, which fueled concerns about his health, especially on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), where hashtags such as #TrumpIsDead and phrases like “Trump is dead” went viral and reached millions of views. An additional trigger was a statement from his Vice President, JD Vance, who remarked that he was prepared to take office “in the event of a terrible tragedy,” which was taken out of context and used to feed the narrative that something serious had happened.

Amid the speculation, some users pointed to marks on the president’s hands and swelling in his legs as signs of physical decline. However, the White House explained that these were due to chronic venous insufficiency, aspirin use, and frequent handshakes.

President Trump reappeared publicly on September 2 in a press conference at the Oval Office. There, he dismissed the rumors as “fake news” and insisted that he had been very active over the weekend, giving interviews, posting on Truth Social, and visiting his golf club in Virginia. Trump joked, saying: “I didn’t do anything for two days and they said, ‘there must be something wrong with him.’ Biden wouldn’t do it for months and nobody said anything.” A reporter even asked him sarcastically, “How did you find out you had died?” — a remark that went viral.

In the following days, after officially announcing the relocation of the U.S. Space Command headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama, Trump again rejected claims about his health and criticized the lack of credibility of the media outlets that amplified speculation without evidence.

The episode not only highlighted the power of social media to generate false narratives on a massive scale, but also reignited the debate over how the media covers the health of a sitting president. While Alabama celebrated the announcement of the new space headquarters as a strategic and economic victory, in Washington and Colorado discussions arose about the level of transparency and journalistic rigor that should be applied in the face of rumors of this magnitude.

Video source: The White House YouTube Channel / https://www.youtube.com/@WhiteHouse