Amid numerous incidents of appearing to nod off at public events and displaying unusual behavior, concerns about the health of President Donald Trump, 79, gained momentum in January 2026. The situation came to a head on January 29 when the media was suddenly asked to leave the Oval Office following the signing of an executive order on addiction recovery. This led to uncorroborated conjecture about the president’s health condition on the internet.
The scrutiny of the president’s health started in December when he seemed to continually doze off during a televised Cabinet meeting. Trump later dismissed this as mere boredom due to his Cabinet members’ incessant adulation. The president had previously assured reporters that his mental acuity was sharper than 25 years ago. He criticized the media’s portrayal of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, saying that while the press painted Biden in glowing health, they questioned his own.
However, photographers documented Trump with his eyes closed for substantial periods during the meeting. According to The Washington Post, the president had his eyes closed for almost six minutes cumulatively. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio was discussing what he referred to as the most pivotal year in American foreign policy since World War II, Trump closed his eyes and rolled his head forward.
The president’s apparent fatigue might be related to his late-night activity on social media. He had posted over 160 times on Truth Social the night before. Trump’s personal physician, in a 2018 report, stated that the president typically gets only four to five hours of sleep per night.
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom took the opportunity to mock the president, posting a video of a drowsy Trump and dubbing him “Dozy Don,” a riff on Trump’s own moniker for Biden, “Sleepy Joe.” This led to increased scrutiny of Trump’s alertness at public events, including a November 2025 press conference on weight-loss drugs and his Manhattan, New York City criminal trial in May 2024.
On January 29, 2026, Trump directly addressed these concerns. “The last time we had a press conference, it lasted for three hours, and some people said he closed his eyes. Look, it got pretty boring,” Trump explained to reporters. “I didn’t sleep. I just closed them because I wanted to get the hell out of here.”
During the same meeting, cameras showed Trump with Band-Aids on his persistently bruised right hand. Trump’s medical report diagnosed him with chronic venous insufficiency, a prevalent condition in individuals over 70.
Trump clarified the confusion around imaging tests he had taken in October 2025. Initially, he claimed he had an MRI, but in a January 1 interview with The Wall Street Journal, he revealed it was a CT scan. “It wasn’t an MRI,” Trump said to the Journal. “It was a scan.” His physician, Navy Captain Sean Barbabella, confirmed that the scan was conducted “to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues,” and the results were described as “perfectly normal.”
The questions around Trump’s health persisted in January 2026. On January 1, The Daily Beast described him as “sick and sleepy,” pointing out that he was calling for “fewer, more important meetings.” In his Wall Street Journal interview, Trump attributed his visible hand bruises to a high daily intake of aspirin – more than his doctors recommend, and claimed that he was brimming with energy. He later announced on Truth Social that he had passed his “third straight” cognitive test.
On January 13, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Trump’s diet “unhinged” during a podcast interview. He disclosed that Trump prefers McDonald’s when traveling, believing that food from large corporations is less likely to make him ill. Kennedy also stated that Dr. Mehmet Oz said Trump had the “highest testosterone level” he’d ever seen for someone over 70. However, physicians quickly dismissed this as having “no biological significance” as Trump’s known level of 441 nanograms per deciliter is normal for his age.
On January 14, a medical professor from Washington State University publicly suggested that Trump might have suffered a stroke in the previous year. He pointed to Trump’s shuffling walk, constant cradling of his right hand, muddled speech, and propensity to fall asleep during meetings as evidence. A week later, on January 22, Trump was spotted with a large bruise on his left hand at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which was different from the usual bruising on his right hand.
In a January 26 interview with New York Magazine, Trump was asked about his father Fred’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. He stated that he was not worried about developing the disease himself. Three days later, on January 29, after signing an executive order on addiction recovery, the media was suddenly asked to leave the Oval Office, igniting unsubstantiated conjecture about the abrupt departure.
Trump holds the record for being the oldest person ever elected to the presidency, which has led to constant questions about his stamina and ability to fulfill his duties.
