President Donald Trump went one round with a large black umbrella, and lost.
The 79-year-old was boarding Air Force One on Sunday in the rain. When he reached the top of the stairs, he waved, flashed a thumbs-up, then tried to close his umbrella as he entered the plane.
He was apparently unable to collapse the umbrella, and stood for a moment with it blocking the door until an aide came to help.
At that point, the president admitted defeat and handed things off to the aide, who brought the umbrella inside the plane and quickly managed to close it.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Two days earlier, the president underwent an “annual” checkup, just six months after his last doctor’s visit, and received a clean bill of health.
“President Donald J. Trump remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance,” his physician Sean Barbabella wrote in a statement to the press.
The medical visit followed months of speculation about the president’s physical and mental health. He has often appeared in public with a deeply bruised hand and swollen ankles, neither of which was mentioned in Barbabella’s statement.
The bruising “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 regime,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told the Daily Beast.
In August, the White House confirmed that the president has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition among seniors, in which blood pools in the legs due to poor circulation.
Trump disappeared from public view for four days in August, leading to rumors that the near-octogenarian leader had died. He was noticeably absent again at the beginning of the government shutdown this month.
Experts have theorized that Trump’s physical symptoms, erratic behavior, and tangential speech patterns could be signs of dementia.
In fairness, the president appeared baffled by the combination of umbrellas and the Air Force One door long before questions about his health surfaced.
Sky News footage from his first term shows him dumping a large black umbrella at the landing outside the plane’s entrance without even trying to close it. The umbrella rolls sadly in the wind until an aide comes and closes it.
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