Photographs of President Donald Trump departing the White House on Labor Day have been circulated by Getty Images, as viral rumors have circulated about his “death” or serious health issues.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment via email.
Why It Matters
The false rumors began circulating on social media on Friday after some noted that Trump had not been seen in public for several days. He also had no public events scheduled for the weekend.
Thousands of posts were shared on X, featuring hashtags including #whereistrump and #TRUMPDIED. According to Grok, X’s AI-powered chatbot, posts speculating about Trump’s possible demise had acquired over 1.3 million user engagements as of Saturday morning.
What to Know
The news images from Monday show Trump wearing a white baseball cap with “USA” written in gold across the front. He is accompanied by a few Secret Service agents and appears to be about to enter a vehicle outside the White House. The photo caption by Getty says the president is “en route to the Trump National Golf Club.”
The images come after the president appeared to respond to the viral rumors Sunday night in a Truth Social post. “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE,” Trump wrote.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
‘Trump Is Dead’ Rumors
Some 158,000 X posts including the phrase ‘TRUMP IS DEAD’ and 42,000 stating ‘TRUMP DIED’ had been made as of 7:48 a.m. ET on Saturday, according to the platform’s analytics. X users continued posting about the rumor on Sunday, though engagement dropped after Trump was spotted heading to his golf course in Virginia on Saturday.
A TikTok from Harry Sisson, a progressive commentator, discussing the rumor and dismissing it, racked up 1.9 million views and 227,000 likes since it was posted. His subsequent posts on the subject have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Trump also continued to post on his Truth Social platform throughout the weekend.
Questions about the president’s health were also spurred after new photos showing bruising on the president’s hand last week spread on social media.
In July, the White House said Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), which his physician described as “benign and common.”
The rumors came days after Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with USA Today that he was ready to assume the presidency if a “terrible tragedy” occurred.
Vance said he is “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.
“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.”
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
What People Are Saying
Mike Rothschild, a journalist and conspiracy theory expert, wrote on X on Sunday: “I get that the vibe is very weird around Trump right now. But these rumors that he’s secretly at Walter Reed have no credible evidence to support them, and are being spread by small-time influencers looking for clicks.”
Ian Bremmer, a political scientist who founded the Eurasia Group consultancy, wrote on X: “So many times internet has gone wild with the putin is dead and xi is dead rumors. that now happening with trump says a lot more about the state of mistrust in information and institutions in the united states than it does about the health of the president.”
What’s Next
Trump has no public events scheduled for Monday. It was previously announced in early August that Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki would come to the White House for a meeting on Wednesday, September 3.
Update 09/01/25 12:21 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
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