The death of Joseph Stalin took days to become public and remains fodder for conspiracy theories. The death of Donald Trump has spawned countless tweets, TikToks and memes long before it even happens.
“How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?” asked Fox News’s Peter Doocy with tongue in cheek. “Did you see that?”
“No,” Trump responded flatly on Tuesday as senators and administration officials gathered around him in the Oval Office shifted their weight and smiled.
The speculation that had swirled on social media over the weekend did not reveal much about the health of Trump who, at 79, is the oldest person ever to assume the US presidency.
But it did offer an insight into an online culture ripe with conspiracy theories, liberal fantasies about Trump’s premature demise and an attention economy in which he has created an expectation that he will all but livestream his presidency 24/7.
“This insatiable hunger for Donald Trump to be gone convinced otherwise intelligent people who pride themselves on scrutiny that here was the hope that he was dead and gone,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota.
“It is a window into the danger of misinformation and the way in which that’s accelerated through the online memes and videos. It was quick and fairly effective in convincing thousands, maybe millions of people that Donald Trump was actually gone, even though there was no evidence of that other than he hadn’t been seen for a day or two.”
The rumours played out against a backdrop in which Trump has spent years lying and hiding his medical records while displaying a penchant for McDonald’s and other fast food, though he says he neither drinks nor smokes. Recently he has been seen with bruising on the back of his right hand, sometimes poorly concealed with makeup, and swelling around his ankles.
The White House has said Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, which means veins in the legs can’t properly carry blood back to the heart, causing it to pool in the lower legs. As far for the bruising, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said it was from “frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin”, which Trump takes regularly to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Trump’s second term in office has delivered a near daily onslaught of speeches, media interactions and social media tirades. But there were no events on his schedule last Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and he took the unusual decision to spend the Labor Day weekend in Washington.
Meanwhile the USA Today newspaper published an interview with JD Vance. When asked if he was ready to assume the role of commander in chief, the vice-president said he was confident that Trump was “in good shape” but also suggested he was prepared to step in if anything happened to the president.
Forbes reported that “Trump”, “is Trump dead” and “Trump dead” were among the top searches on Google as of noon on Saturday. The phrase “Where is Donald Trump” was trending on X.
Over the Labor Day weekend, reporters did see Trump leaving the White House each day to visit his Virginia golf course. But he did not stop to talk and photos were blurry and distant. Adding fuel to the fire, the president posted a picture of himself playing golf with a former football coach that was a week old.
Fred Wellman, a political consultant, replied on X: “This is insane. The President of the United States is obviously lying about his activities and the lack of curiosity by the media is stunning.”
There was also no shortage of witty memes and satirical videos. Danny Zuker wrote on the Bluesky platform: “Video shot earlier today shows Trump looking healthy and happy,” next to an image of a young Trump at a party with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The president posted his own messages on social media, including the claim that he “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE”, but conspiracy theorists were quick to dismiss them as the work of aides engaged in an elaborate cover-up.
The new week began with social media users asserting that roads had been closed around Walter Reed national military medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, where Trump was treated for Covid-19 five years ago. Extremely online politicos worked themselves up into a frenzy, speculating that Trump was inside and at death’s door.
To be, or not to be? The president, it transpired, was still very much alive. On Tuesday he held an Oval Office event to announce that the US Space Command would be relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, and fielded reporters’ questions as usual.
Asked by Doocy about the intimations of mortality, the president replied: “I knew they were saying, like: ‘Is he OK? How is he feeling? What’s wrong?’” Trump said, calling the speculation “fake news” and saying he “was very active over the weekend”.
The answer shed little light on Trump’s physical and mental condition, a subject that was a constant drag on his predecessor Joe Biden. But the fevered rumours did underline how Trump is missed when he is not filling the airwaves. For this president, nothing could be more shocking than the sound of silence.
Reed Galen, president of the Union, a pro-democracy coalition, said: “The guy is so omnipresent that when he’s gone for 36 or 48 hours he leaves such a hole in the news. For those who make a political living on bashing Donald Trump, you need the daily tweets, you need the daily outrage, you need the insanity of a cabinet meeting or a pool spray in the Oval Office. When you don’t have it you’re like, wait!
“It’s like you’re addicted, like you gotta eat ice-cream every day, and one day you don’t get your ice-cream and wait a second, something’s missing. What’s happening? The medium is the message. He has created this beast that even he must feed and, when he doesn’t, people are like, ‘wait a second, what’s going on?’ because it’s so out of character.”
Others detect a double standard in the way that Biden and Trump’s age and health are scrutinised. Drexel Heard, a Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles, said: “There are the speculations: what’s happening with Donald Trump’s hand? What’s that on his head? It’s little bits and pieces. It’s almost like Swifties trying to find the clues from Taylor Swift but it’s nothing until the person actually says what it is.
He added: “Donald Trump is as old as Joe Biden. How it is not being covered the same way, I’ll never know. Same thing with any of our older politicians that we’re not covering the same as we did with Joe Biden. That was started by Donald Trump, who spent most of his time during his off presidency years talking about how old Joe Biden was and laying that groundwork for people.”
Like many other Trump dramas over the past decade, this one culminated in an opportunity to make money. On Thursday a pro-Trump political action committee called Never Surrender blasted out a fundraising email entitled “Memo from Trump” that began: “I’M ALIVE! The fake news media and the radical left tried to spread LIES, saying your favorite President, Donald J. Trump, was dead or sick. Can you believe it?
“DISGRACEFUL! Let me tell you something, I’m more alive than ever! They say I wasn’t around for a couple of days, and suddenly they’re writing my obituary? Meanwhile, Crooked Joe Biden could disappear for months, and the media wouldn’t say a word. SAD!”
The email invited readers to “stand with Trump” by contributing cash. But anyone itching to write the headline “Death of a Salesman” will have to wait.
