The White House’s X account again used an Oval Office model of Air Force One to help obscure the president’s swollen ankles on Wednesday.
In a photograph of Donald Trump meeting his Polish counterpart, the coffee table item is shown below the president’s knees. The picture is also cropped to where the affected area might not have been visible at all.
🇺🇸🤝🇵🇱”It’s a great pleasure to have President @NawrockiKn with us… the people of Poland have taken to him immediately. They really love him.” –@POTUS pic.twitter.com/MSdYbm9PFE
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 3, 2025
A few videos of the visit posted by Margo Martin, a special assistant to the president, didn’t provide a clear look either, thanks to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leg.
Reporter: “What is your message to Putin?” @POTUS: “I have no message to President Putin. He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision…We’ll either be happy about it or unhappy—and if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen.” pic.twitter.com/JMjPyqErhR
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) September 3, 2025
Photographers at the Oval Office meeting, however, captured shots of Trump’s cankles as he sat next to President Karol Nawrocki.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast asking if the framing in Wednesday’s posts was intentional.
But after Trump was diagnosed in July with chronic venous insufficiency, which makes it difficult for blood to travel from the lower extremities back to the heart, social media posts by the White House appear to show an effort to avoid visible indicators of that condition.
A photo of Trump’s meeting late last month with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for instance, included the Air Force Model and coffee table in front of his ankles.
Bruising on the president’s right hand has also generated questions about his health, with the White House saying it’s due to frequent handshaking and aspirin use. Trump has been applying makeup to it, in some cases a more skin tone matching color than others.
On Tuesday, he went one step further: taking a photo with a “Gulf of America” hat on the Resolute Desk directly in front of his hands.
At a press conference earlier that day, Trump dismissed health concerns that had grown online over his unusually quiet holiday weekend.
“Last week, I did numerous news conferences—all successful. They went very well, like this is going very well,” the 79-year-old said.
“And then I didn’t do any for two days, and they said, ‘There must be something wrong with him.’ Biden wouldn’t do them for months. You wouldn’t see him, and nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him, and we know he wasn’t in the greatest of shape.”
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