TOI Correspondent from Washington: Distasteful rumors about the demise of US President Donald Trump trended on social media on Friday after the MAGA supremo uncharacteristically remained out of the public eye for more than 72 hours amid mounting concerns about his health.Hashtags like #trumpisdead #whereistrump and #hesdead trended on X after the US President, who loves being in the news and in the limelight via cameras, was not seen after an epic three-hour White House cabinet meeting on Tuesday that was livecast. Unusually, his White House schedule showed no Presidential events on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and into the weekend, when he typically heads out to one of his resort properties to play golf. Speculation and rumors — some of them vicious and some involving trolling — were triggered by concerns about the 79-year old President’ health over the past few weeks as TV cameras have shown him with bruises and purple patches on his hands and swollen legs and ankles. While an army of trolls — some claiming to be physicians — said the symptoms could be indicative of progressive heart disease, the White House, at Trump’s own prompting, has been fairly transparent about the diagnosis.The President’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Trump had instructed her to share a note from his physicians which said that the swelling was diagnosed as “chronic venous insufficiency,” a common condition. The physician’s note maintained there was “no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease” and that he “remains in excellent health.”About the bruising on his hand, Leavitt later said it is “consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.”The explanations did little to quell trolling from Trump haters, who linked recent comments by vice-president JD Vance –that he’s ready for the Oval Office job if Trump passes on — to speculate about how serious the President’s condition is. “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.” Vance said in an interview to USA Today, while asserting that Trump is in “incredibly good health,” has “incredible energy,” and he is confident the President will serve out the remainder of his term.But Trump-haters who generated more than a million posts on the subject even as the President remained out of sight. Trolls also invoked the cartoon series The Simpsons, which has a surreal record of predicting the future, to speculate about Trump’s demise. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, had joked at a recent event that the show would continue until “you-know-who” dies, and that “President Vance” would then ban dancing.However, demonstrating he’s very much on top of the situation, the MAGA supremo posted twice on his Truth Social account on Friday night, lashing out at an appeals court ruling against his tariff order, and pledging to take it to the Supreme Court.
