The White House was forced to step in after the rumor mill went into overdrive on Saturday to speculate about the health of President Donald Trump.
The administration went on the defensive after social media was set abuzz by unfounded whispers that the 79-year-old president was hospitalized at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland,which followed a curious, days-long absence from the public eye.
“Deranged liberals cook up insane conspiracy theories when @POTUS goes 12 hours without speaking to press,” the White House’s rapid response account wrote on X. “(They said nothing when Biden routinely went 12 days without speaking to press) Fear not! President Trump literally never stops working.”
The rapid response account reposted CBS News’ Emma Nicholson, who reported that a Marine sentry was spotted outside the West Wing on Saturday afternoon. The presence of sentries signals that the president is in the West Wing or the Oval Office, as they are tasked with rotating shifts to guard the entrance.
White House communications director Steven Cheung also sought to allay the conspiracies without addressing them outright.
“There has never been a President who has worked harder for the American people than President Trump. On this Easter weekend, he has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office. God Bless him,” he wrote on X.
Trump was last seen by the public on Wednesday night, when he gave a rambling national address asserting the dominance of the U.S. amid the war with Iran—while distancing himself from the oil price spikes and backlash from allies that it has wrought.
Rumors about the president’s condition were compounded by his unusual absence from the golf course, which he regularly visits on the weekends.
While social media users speculated on his health, Trump was busy posting away on Truth Social.
The president made nine posts on Saturday, covering everything from his criticism of the “failing” New York Times to the “great” jobs report and high approval ratings of his administration—from surveys conducted by the MAGA-filled Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Trump also bragged that “many of Iran’s Military Leaders, who have led them poorly and unwisely, are terminated, along with much else, with this massive strike in Tehran!”
However, Trump has yet to acknowledge the two U.S. aircraft downed by Iranian forces, triggering a frantic search for one airman.
The attacks undercut Trump’s claim in his national address that the U.S. had “beaten and completely decimated Iran.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s absence from the public eye and the jets attacked by Iran.
