Last week, Fox News personality Sean Hannity shared a photograph of himself and President Donald Trump in McAllen, Texas ahead of a broadcast of his show. What caught everyone's attention was the president's hand, sporting a band-aid across the knuckles. The president's hand was bandaged again on Monday as he departed for a trip to New Orleans.
Hannity also had a matching bandaid, only adding to the mystery amid questions about the president's physical health.
Responding to a query from Politico, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump sustained the injury while playing with his son:
“The President was having fun and joking around with his son Barron and scratched his hand.
But people still have questions, and it doesn't look like they're buying the explanation.
Although there's no way to tell what this injury means for Trump's overall health, it does come almost a year to the day after Trump received his last known physical exam, after which he was given a clean bill of health by then-White House physician Ronny Jackson. Sanders confirmed Trump will have another physical soon, though she did not specify a date. She said details are being finalized and will be released publicly.
Last year, Jackson vouched for Trump’s health, saying his neurological functions are excellent and assuring the press corps that the president would be able to serve his entire term. He added that Trump likely had “incredible genes” that allowed him to remain healthy despite a lack of exercise and a taste for fast food.
“That’s just the way God made him,” Jackson said at the time.
Trump has often, as Politico notes, "striven to project an image of physical vitality" and "ridiculed the vitality of his opponents." (He once described Jeb Bush as "low energy" and claimed Hillary Clinton lacked "the stamina" to serve as president.)
In December 2015, Trump's personal physician, Harold Bornstein, released a letter praising Trump for "extraordinary" physical strength and stamina.
"His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary," he wrote in the letter. "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."
The letter didn't offer much in the way of medical evidence, only citing a blood pressure of 110/65, and claiming that Trump had not only lost 15 pounds in the preceding year but that his cardiovascular health was "excellent."
Bornstein later admitted Trump had dictated the letter's contents.
"He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter," Bornstein told CNN last year. "I just made it up as I went along."
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram