President Donald Trump accidentally flaunted his bulging ankles as he trudged down the steps of Air Force One after his weekly stay at his Florida bolthole.
The 79-year-old had been at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach over the weekend. Footage showed him arriving back in Washington, D.C., via Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on Sunday evening.
As has become customary, Trump looked like someone trying to work out how legs work as he clumsily descended the stairs at Joint Base Andrews before transferring to Marine One to head back to the White House. To add to this unsavory scene, the wind in Maryland revealed something even nastier: the president’s cankles.
As Trump trudged down the steps of AF1, several gusts lifted the bottom of his trousers, putting the chunky joints on display. His left ankle looked particularly bulbous when caught by the lights on the stairs.
Later on, the president gingerly descended the markedly smaller steps of Marine One, ignored the press, and disappeared into the White House.
His cankles were last on display when Trump met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last Wednesday.
Trump’s ailment followed him onto the 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.
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.
However, the footage from Sunday evening and from the World Economic Forum, coupled with recent photos of deep bruising on both of his hands, tells an altogether different story.
The White House has previously attributed this to vigorous handshaking combined with aspirin use for “cardiac prevention.”
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.
