President Donald Trump said he didn't know about conspiracy theories circulating on the internet over the weekend about him being dead.
"No, I've been very active actually, over the weekend, I didn't hear that one that's pretty serious," Trump said Tuesday — his first time publicly addressing reporters in a week.
Trump said he'd heard about general concerns about his well-being, but not about the speculation he'd died. "I knew they were saying, like, 'Is he okay? How's he feeling? What's wrong?'"
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Trump said he'd been active over the long Labor Day weekend, during which he went to his Virginia golf course each day, and noted he also did an interview on Friday with the Daily Caller.
"It's also sort of a longer weekend, you know, it's Labor Day weekend. I would say a lot of people know I was very active this Labor Day. I had heard that, but I didn't hear to that extent," Trump said.
He also touted his lengthy public appearances last week, including a Cabinet meeting that lasted more than three hours.
"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.' Biden wouldn't do them for months," Trump said.
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The President was back in public to announce a new location for US Space Command headquarters — and prove that rumours of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Trump held court in the Oval Office on Tuesday, breaking a week-long absence from the spotlight that gave rise to viral theories that the president was seriously ill or had even died.
The rumours took over social media, rocketing around BlueSky and X among conspiratorial influencers who had already raised questions about recurring bruising seen on Trump's hand.
Trump, who multiple sources close to the president said has been long been self-conscious about his hand bruise, brushed off the speculation about his wellbeing and insisted he'd been "very active" over the holiday weekend.
"It's sort of crazy," he told reporters.
Even as he kept out of the public eye, Trump was anything but silent. On Friday, he sat for a lengthy interview with the Daily Caller, weighing in on a range of topics from his crime crackdown to the war in Ukraine to his expanding White House renovation project.
He also posted compulsively to Truth Social over the weekend, at one point on Saturday publishing a 247-word missive — with attached video — recounting his confrontation with a tradesman who he claimed had scuffed the new stonework in the Rose Garden.
"I did numerous shows and also did a number of Truths, long Truths, I think pretty poignant Truths," Trump said of his social media activity. "I've been very active, actually."
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Photographers, in the meantime, captured several images of him travelling to and from his Virginia golf course.
In a statement on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "is perfectly fine and has a tremendous amount of energy."
"The made-up speculation online is crazy and baseless, and it's clearly being pushed by Democrat activists and left-wing lunatics," Leavitt told CNN.
"(Trump) has been completely transparent about his health with the public, unlike his predecessor, who went weeks without speaking to the media and spent a third of his presidency sleeping on vacation."
Behind the scenes, the sources close to Trump said the bruising had been occurring long before he re-took office. He has had his hand evaluated several times, the sources said, each time with a similar conclusion that revolved around his age and use of aspirin.
Still, the evidence across the weekend that Trump remained very much alive has done little to quell speculation in conspiracy-minded corners of the internet that have fixated on his health since photos circulated earlier this year showing bruising on his hands, along with images from earlier this year showing swelling in his legs.
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The White House said at the time that the 79-year-old had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition in older people where the valves inside certain veins don't work the way they should, allowing blood to pool in the veins.
An examination found no indication of any more serious conditions, Trump's physician, Sean Barbabella, wrote at the time.
As for the bruising on the back of Trump's hand, Barbabella attributed it to "minor soft tissue irritation" from a combination of frequent handshaking and Trump's use of aspirin, which can make bruising more common.
The attention paid to the bruise has bothered Trump and made him self-conscious, and until recently he had taken to covering the bruising with heavy makeup. Issues with his hand, multiple sources say, date back to the campaign, when in one instance he bled after getting cut while he shook hands with a woman with a ring and long nails.
"He has now gotten over the self-conscious part—which is why you are seeing it more," one White House official told CNN.
"He made a decision to stop covering it and just own it because he knows people know about it."
On Tuesday, Trump appeared to have discolouration on the back of his hand, possibly from makeup or from a bruise that had healed slightly.
The bruise's visibility during last week's Cabinet meeting — combined with Trump's conspicuous attempt at times to cover it with his other hand — had revived the chatter online about his health.
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