President Donald Trump took his sweet time descending four small steps on Monday.
The 79-year-old president cautiously climbed down the steps at his Mar-a-Lago estate as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the Gaza peace plan.
Trump glanced down at the short staircase before him as he waited for Netanyahu to come forward.
“Hi Bibi,” he later said with his arms open, as he once again looked down to focus on slowly descending the steps.
The two leaders exchanged niceties in front of the cameras after Trump made his way down.
“Does anybody recognize this man? Not too many people,” Trump quipped as Netanyahu, 76, cracked a smile.
Trump hasn’t been coy about his fear of going down the stairs. In September, he admitted that he was wary of publicly stumbling and falling like his predecessor Joe Biden, who was 82 when he left the White House.
“Every day, the guy’s falling down stairs,” Trump told military generals who were gathered in Quantico. “I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs—like I’m on stairs like these stairs—I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall because it doesn’t work out well… Just walk nice and easy. You don’t have to set any record.”
The possibility of falling down the stairs was still on the president’s mind in October, when he acknowledged that he would likely stumble one day.
“We had a horrible, horrible president who had no clue what the hell was happening. The chances of him walking down those stairs successfully were not good,” he said. “And I have to be careful because one day I’m gonna probably fall.”
Trump has raised eyebrows for his ginger descents in the past. Social media was abuzz with speculation about the state of his health when he delicately climbed down the stairs earlier this month and in October.
His Monday climbdown drew fresh mockery on social media.
“What are the chances there will be a tumble, on camera?” one user wrote.
“Apparently walking down at staircase wasn’t a part of his cognitive tests,” another added.
Others pointed out, however, that anyone of Trump’s advanced age would be cautious in going down the stairs.
But it’s not just walking down steps that he has to worry about. In June, Trump briefly stumbled while he was climbing the stairs up to Air Force One.
The following month, the White House revealed that Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition where leg veins struggle to send blood back to the heart.
Trump, the oldest person to be inaugurated president, has long courted speculations about his physical and mental fitness thanks to the bruises on his hands, swollen ankles, mental flubs, and mystery check-ups.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained that all is well with Trump in a statement to the Daily Beast.
“As the President’s physician, Dr. Sean Barbabella, has made clear time and again—and as the American people see with their own eyes every single day—President Trump remains in excellent overall health,” she said, before pivoting to an attack on the media, whom she said “intentionally covered up” Biden’s “serious mental and physical decline.”
The post Trump, 79, Gingerly Descends Four Small Steps appeared first on The Daily Beast.
