President Donald Trump welcomed a new year with his trusty makeup over his bruised hand.
Trump, 79, sported his usual mismatched concealer over his right hand as he threw a glitzy New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Wednesday.
The president was all buttoned up as he entered the party with first lady Melania sparkling in a silver dress. The makeup on his hand shone under the lights as he stopped briefly to speak with the press to let them know that his New Year’s resolution was “peace on earth.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
The party was attended by a who’s who of MAGAworld personalities, including Eric Trump and his wife Lara, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and several conservative media personalities, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara.
Trump’s bruised hand has courted wide speculation about the state of his health since it first caught eyes in February. After months of the White House attributing the bruising to frequent handshaking and aspirin use, and months of Daily Beast coverage on Trump’s health, the aging president himself addressed concerns in a candid interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart,” Trump said. “I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
White House physician Sean Barbabella revealed that Trump takes 325 milligrams of aspirin a day. A low dose is typically 81 milligrams, according to Mayo Clinic.
“They’d rather have me take the smaller one,” Trump said. “I take the larger one, but I’ve done it for years, and what it does do is it causes bruising.”
Just this weekend, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Beast that the bruises were caused by Trump’s frequent handshaking.
“President 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. His commitment is unwavering and he proves that every single day,” she said on Sunday, reverting to a statement that she has been reusing since February.
Earlier last year, Leavitt had also said that the bruising was caused in part by “the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regime.”
Trump also told the Journal that he has makeup that’s “easy to put on, takes about 10 seconds” — which might help explain why the concealer shade hardly matches his skin tone and often appears hastily smeared on. He told the outlet that he applies the makeup after he gets “whacked again by someone.”
The president also revealed that he briefly tried wearing compression socks for his swelling ankles, but gave up when he “didn’t like them.” The White House previously said he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition where leg veins struggle to push blood back up to the heart.
As for the mystery MRI, Trump and Barbabella clarified that it was never an MRI after all.
Barbabella told the Journal that the advanced imaging the president received was a CT scan, which is faster and more common than an MRI, “to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues.” It did not reveal any abnormalities. The White House didn’t address why it hadn’t set the record straight sooner when speaking to the outlet.
“In retrospect, it’s too bad I took it because it gave them a little ammunition,” Trump said of his decision to get a cardiovascular and abdominal scan in October. “I would have been a lot better off if they didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”
