By Ally Uhlendorf
Editor-in-Chief
After a week of viral rumors circulating about President Donald Trump’s death, he has offered his first in-person comments dismissing the online conspiracy theories.
During a televised press conference in the Oval Office on Sept. 2, Trump was asked by a reporter whether or not he was aware of the whispers regarding the state of his health. In response, the president stated that did not see any of these speculations.
“How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?” the reporter asked Trump at the conference. “Did you see that?”
Brushing it off, the president replied to the over 1 million user engagements regarding his demise with a simple “no… 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 had not been seen in public from Tuesday afternoon until Saturday morning. Prior to his disappearance from the public eye, he attended a more-than-three-hour on-camera Cabinet meeting, the longest conference of his term thus far. On Aug. 29, “Trump Is Dead” and “Where Is Trump?” began trending on X.
Adding to the speculation that something was severely wrong with his health, Trump was spotted with a recurring large bruise on his hand that, until recently, was concealed by makeup. In February, the White House stated that the bruise was a result of Trump’s “constantly working and shaking hands all day every day.” In July, his doctor wrote that Trump takes aspirin as part of a “cardiovascular prevention regimen” and that the bruising is a side effect of the medication. The physician insisted at the time that despite Trump’s diagnosis, he "remains in excellent health.”
Trump’s very own Vice President, JD Vance, also fueled suspicions regarding his health. “Yes, terrible tragedies happen. But, I feel very confident the President of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people,” Vance told USA Today. “And 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,” he said.
At the Sept. 2 conference, the president went on to reveal that he was aware of the public questioning the state of his health due to reports he received, but was not aware of the conspiracies that he died.
“That’s pretty serious stuff,” he said. “I knew they were saying, like, ‘Is he okay? How’s he feeling?’ ... I had heard that, but I didn't hear that to that extent.”
Trump stated that he spent the holiday weekend being “very active,” including golf outings at his northern Virginia club.
After claims of Trump’s death had already dominated the internet, he shut down the rumors through footage of his excursion from the White House to the Trump National Golf Club on Aug. 30.
Trump visited the golf course again on Monday, with the White House press pool reporting that he stayed at the club for around five and a half hours before returning home.
Despite these public sightings, speculations regarding his health have persisted, with many insisting that he could have potentially suffered from an undisclosed medical emergency.
The president’s son, Eric, squashed the death rumors about his father on X reposting one message that quoted the president as saying, “I’ve never felt better in my life.”
Trump blamed the conspiracy theories regarding his death on “fake news,” blaming the media for spreading it, although the theory arose organically from social media users and was never treated as fact by major news outlets.
