Up-close photos of Donald Trump reveal what the 80-year-old was concealing with black leather gloves during a welcome ceremony Wednesday for his Chinese counterpart.
Trump sported the gloves—and a coat—at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for the arrival of Xi Jinping, for whom the president rolled out a 100-foot red carpet. The temperature was 64 degrees, spurring questions about Trump’s attire, which the White House has not commented on.
Photographs from Thursday suggest Trump may have been forced to slather both hands in makeup to hide bruising.
When the president removed his right glove to shake Jinping’s hand, beige makeup on the top of his hand was visible.
The president often has bruising on his right hand, which the White House has attributed to frequent handshaking and his use of aspirin. Trump has been taking a higher-than-recommended dosage of the drug—325 milligrams daily—for the last 25 years to keep his blood thin, even though doctors have advised him to lower the amount.
“I’m a little superstitious,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in January. “They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
The makeup he uses to conceal the bruising takes “about 10 seconds” to apply, he said.
Bruising has also shown up on Trump’s “good” hand. At a World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, in January, the then-79-year-old had a gnarly patch on his left side.
About that, then-White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Beast, “At the Board of Peace event today in Davos, President Trump hit his hand on the corner of the signing table, causing it to bruise.”
The White House hasn’t responded to Daily Beast inquiries about Trump’s reason for wearing the gloves on Thursday. Trump was not wearing them when he left the White House earlier that afternoon to board Marine One, but had them on during his return.
The White House has previously claimed that Trump “is a man of the people and he meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other President in history.”
On Thursday, another part of Trump’s appearance spurred questions while he showed Xi Marine One and the new helipad on the South Lawn: his backside.
The same apparent bulge seen in August and earlier this month was visible, leading to speculation about whether the president was wearing some sort of “contraption.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this topic, either.
