Q&A: How Trump’s ankles, a Vance quote and a quiet holiday fueled a viral death hoax
Rather than the traditional hot dogs and hamburgers, some people spent the Labor Day weekend grilling up speculation that President Donald Trump was gravely ill or even dead.
The false claims pointed to a suspended schedule (it wasn’t), cryptic hints from Vice President JD Vance (he didn’t) and old images of Trump that supposedly showed a president in decline.
The story fizzled once Trump appeared live at the White House on Sept. 2 and even joked about the chatter when Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked him about it.
“I didn’t see that. I have heard. It’s sort of crazy, but last week I did numerous news conferences. All successful, they went very well. Like this is going very well,” Trump said. “And then I didn’t do any for two days and they said ‘There must be something wrong with him.’”
To understand how the hoax started and why it caught fire so quickly, I sent a few questions to PolitiFact reporters Maria Ramirez Uribe and Loreben Tuquero, who wrote about the claim earlier this week.
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