Donald Trump and maga Republicans are covering up 79 year old Trump aging disorders and risk of chronic illness

No amount of hand makeup can cover up concerns about Trump’s health.  Even Trump's reemergence at the White House could not deter the continuing alarm over America’s political gerontocracy.

In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump talked about relocating US Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama; his never-ending hatred of mail-in voting, although he has used it for years; and how the common and popular voting practice figured into his decision.

Trump also casually — and shockingly — mentioned that the US military blew up a boat in international waters and killed what he later said, without evidence, were 11 Venezuelan “terrorists” transporting drugs.

But many who tuned into Trump’s press conference were probably interested in only two things — the president’s right hand and whether he would show up at all.

Amid the backyard gatherings and beach outings on the unofficial last weekend of summer, social media was buzzing about Trump’s public absence, his health, and even wild rumors about his death. 

No amount of hand makeup can cover up concerns about Trump’s health: Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe by
Renée Graham

By Saturday, during the Labor Day weekend, Donald Trump had not been seen in public for several days and had no public events scheduled. While that wouldn’t have been a big issue for his predecessors, Trump lives for the attention of cameras and microphones. But, no sightings of Trump bloviating became the internet’s version of “Where’s Waldo?”

For months, Trump’s right hand — or, more specifically, the back of it — has been covered by a large bruise. First spotted in February while Trump was hosting President Emmanuel Macron of France at the White House, Karoline Leavitt  (aka "3-D Printer Barbie"), Trump’s press secretary, gave a silly explanation for the discoloration. "Trump is a man of the people and he meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other President in history,” she said in a statement seasoned with Trumpian preposterous hyperbole❗

Cool story, bro. But why is the president’s right hand bruised?

Online sleuths, especially those with no great love for Trump, smelled a cover-up. But there was also a literal one. The presidential bruise was often spackled with thick makeup not even close to his skin tone. (Given the prominence of makeup in this presidency, it’s remarkable that no one in this White House knows how to apply it correctly to Trump’s face or hand.)

And this was before Ankle-gate.

After viewers saw Trump’s severely swollen ankles, while he was sitting at the FIFA Club World Cup final in New Jersey in July, the White House, which usually stays mum about Trump’s health, said he had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. Captain Sean Barbabella, a US Navy physician and Trump’s doctor, described it “a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70.”

That statement seemed designed to serve two goals — to shut down wild speculation about Trump’s health but also perhaps to generate sympathy when the White House’s self-inflicted Jeffrey Epstein files disaster was dominating the news cycle.

Then, in a USA Today interview last week, Vice President JD Vance touted Trump’s “incredibly good health” and said he was “confident” that Trump “is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people.” But in comments as tasteless as they were ominous, Vance added, “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.”

Every vice president probably fantasizes about stepping in for a fallen president. Most have the common decency to keep it to themselves.

But even Trump’s reemergence at the White House could not deter what’s the obvious and continuing alarm over America’s political gerontocracy.

We went through this during Joe Biden’s presidency. Biden, the oldest president ever, was cheered every time he could get through a speech without difficulty. (The bar should not have been that low, folks.) But if Biden and his enablers were in denial, so were a lot of his voters and the media. 

Then reality bit hard in June 2024, during his one stultifying debate with Trump. Less than a month later, Biden, 81, ended his reelection bid.

Trump is 79. Should he serve out his second term, he’ll be 82, the same as Biden was when he left the White House. Questions and revelations about the president’s mental and physical health, as well as any signs of deterioration, aren’t just appropriate but mandatory by those covering this White House. Nothing that comes from Leavitt about Trump’s condition (or, frankly, anything else), should be swallowed as fact.

On Wednesday, September 3, Trump was back in the Oval Office and whining about the still-unreleased Justice Department files on his former pal and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as “a Democratic hoax.” That’s not true, and Trump knows it. But this certainly is — no amount of badly applied make-up on his bruised hand can cover up legitimate concerns about the health of this nation’s second oldest president.

This is an excerpt from Outtakes, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham.