President Donald Trump put his swollen ankles on full display as he held talks with world leaders to walk back his threats to seize Greenland.
The 79-year-old president met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
But as he sat down with Rutte, 58, and members of his Cabinet, Trump’s pants crept up his shins to reveal enlarged ankles bulging over the tops of his shoes.
The extent of the elderly president’s swelling was particularly noticeable in photos that showed the other official’s ankles. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ankles looked stick-thin in comparison to Trump’s.
Trump’s cankles followed him onto the World Economic Forum stage and into meetings with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
The White House announced in July that Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition common in seniors in which blood pools in the legs due to poor circulation.
Trump’s swelling may have been aggravated by a turbulent trip on Air Force One, which was forced to make an abrupt return to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday night following an electrical issue on board.
His second departure, just after midnight, is thought to have added almost three extra hours to his journey. Cameras on Wednesday morning captured a visibly tired Trump very slowly descending Air Force One’s stairs onto the tarmac in Switzerland.
Further footage of him walking up a red carpet at Davos shows the president breathing heavily and struggling to tread in a straight line.
Trump is unlikely to have worn compression socks on the plane. In a New Year’s Day interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he tried compression socks but stopped because, “I didn’t like them.”
He said that he was trying to get up from his desk more and walk around, which doctors recommend to reduce swelling, but dismissed exercise other than golf as “boring.”
Trump and his aides told the Journal that the swelling in his legs had improved.
But photos from Wednesday appear to show little change in his cankles since last year, when the Daily Beast catalogued both the swelling and the White House’s apparent attempts to obscure it.
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told the Daily Beast in a statement, “President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in modern American history. While the deranged and failing Daily Beast pushes baseless conspiracy theories — President Trump is dominating on the world stage and brokering historic deals to advance the interests of the American people.”
Trump, the oldest person ever inaugurated as president, has also displayed a persistent purple bruise on the back of his right hand, which the White House has attributed to vigorous handshaking combined with aspirin use for “cardiac prevention.”
However, the handshake defense lost some credibility in December, when Trump’s left hand began showing discoloration as well.
Trump has faced increasing speculation surrounding his physical and cognitive health in his second term, and he now finds himself facing the same kind of scrutiny that haunted his predecessor, Joe Biden.
The president’s rambling address to the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, in which he confused Greenland for Iceland and appeared to forget he is president, sparked calls for his Cabinet to “take the keys” away from him.
