US President Donald Trump set the internet abuzz last week after becoming suspiciously quiet and vanishing from the public eye. Many were convinced that the US President — arguably one of the most powerful people in the world — had died in late August. Photos of Trump playing golf with his grandchildren over the weekend did not help dispel the rumours and later images of the POTUS only served to intensify claims about his ill health.
Trump has since pushed back against the allegations and dismissed the claims as unfounded speculation.
“Never felt better in my life,” he insisted in an all-caps Truth Social post on Monday.
The rumour mill however begged to differ — with a varied range of conspiracy theories cropping up despite his insistence. Some remain convinced that the White House had trotted out a body double for the now-viral golfing photos of Trump. Others saw evidence of his impending demise in a freshly cancelled visit to India and new rules restricting journalist access to the President. The two most popular theories appear to be an ischemic stroke or a heart attack with body doubling as a distant third.
Media access blocked
Several social users remain convinced that Donald Trump suffered a stroke last week — contending that there was simply no alternative. Multiple posts on X insisted that the media restrictions were simply a way to ensure nobody saw Trump up close or spoke to him or took clear photos of him.
“If he was just gone and nobody had seen him for seven plus days…he could be in Antarctica talking to aliens. He could be in North Korea chilling with Kim Jong Un. Whatever. There’s lots of options that don’t involve Trump being dead. This stuff, though? He had a stroke. That’s it. What else would it even be? He had a personality transplant and is now extremely shy?” asked one X user.
“i don’t think he’s actually dead. But it will be one of those moments we had in Biden’s administration where he vanished for five days and came back a clone of the original version and looked entirely different,” insisted another.
‘Trump had an ischemic stroke’
“I believe there is growing evidence, that the White House is covering up the fact that Donald Trump has been dealing with TIA strokes. AND that he likely had a more significant ischemic stroke this week,” began a post by Adam Cochran.
The X handle with over 233,000 followers shared a whopping 31-post thread on X to explain their theory. Cochran — whose bio also identified him as an ‘investigative journalist’ — chronicled health updates starting March 2024 to underscore his point. He claimed that the issue had begun with TIA or ‘mini strokes’ where a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain caused stroke-like symptoms. The X user cited posts and videos from the campaign trail that showed Trump “dragging” his right leg and the later updates about bruises on his hand.
For those who do not devotedly follow the social media landscape, the bruises on his hand have made headlines and sparked rumours for longer than the second Trump presidency. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as well as Trump have repeatedly insisted that the bruises had formed due to excessive hand-shaking — an unfortunate side-effect of his job.
Cochran also cited current medications prescribed to the POTUS (outlined in his annual physical report) to highlight their use in ‘stroke prevention’. The White House eventually announced a ‘chronic venous insufficiency’ diagnosis for Trump in July this year amid fresh buzz about his swollen ankles — with social media noting several discrepancies.