US President Donald Trump speaks prior to signing a presidential proclamation honoring the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on August 14, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
There have been bogus claims online that Donald Trump is very sick or even dead, using modified photographs and photos taken out of context. Even after the president publicly denied these allegations yesterday, the misleading material has continued to spread.
Trump called allegations on social media about his health “fake news” at a press conference at the White House. This was after the 79-year-old was noticeably absent from public engagements and press events last week, according to AFP.
According to NewsGuard, an organization that keeps an eye on false information, the hashtag “Trump dead” has been used about 104,000 times on the Elon Musk-owned platform X since last Friday. These posts have gotten a total of 35.3 million views.
Some people on social media said that online maps that showed road restrictions near Maryland’s Walter Reed National Military Medical Center were proof that Trump was getting treatment for a serious illness there.
There were, however, no reliable reports of road closures near the medical center.
Some people on social media uploaded a picture of an ambulance parked outside the White House, saying it was taken last month and using it as proof of a health problem involving Trump. Get vitamins and other supplements
According to NewsGuard, it was an old photo that a journalist uploaded on X in April 2023, when Joe Biden was still president.
People who said Trump was dead tweeted a picture of the White House flag flying at half-staff, which is a traditional way to respect the death of a high-ranking official.
In fact, Trump had ordered flags at the White House, military bases, and naval stations across the country to be lowered last week in respect of the victims of a school massacre in Minneapolis.
Some people also tweeted a close-up picture of Trump’s face, saying it showed a thick line over his eye that meant he had a stroke recently.
But NewsGuard determined that the original picture was blurry and didn’t show a line over Trump’s eye. An AI technique was utilized to digitally improve the picture that was used in the fake posts.
The false information, which seemed to come from liberal anti-Trump accounts on X, Bluesky, and Instagram, kept going even after Trump said on Truth Social over the weekend, “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE.”
After Trump’s news conference yesterday, where he publicly denied the health rumors, the lies kept going around.
Not long after the conference, a Bluesky account falsely said that the “White House just announced” the president was dead.
The lies show how facts are being attacked more and more on the internet, which is made worse by people’s lack of trust in institutions and conventional media.
People have always kept a close eye on the health of US presidents, but since 2017, when the White House had its two oldest occupants ever, the attention is even greater.
Trump, who is the oldest person to ever be elected president of the United States, said that Democrats hid Biden’s mental and physical decline. Biden was 82 when he left office in January.
Biden’s health was a big issue in the 2024 election, and he had to bow out of the race for a second term after a terrible debate against Trump.
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