You don't need to be a doctor to recognize what's happening: the mental lacunae, the mysterious MRIs, the obvious dragging leg, the dementia centaur stoop, the bruises, fatigue, physical fragility, and the increasing sense that the presidency is being run like an influencer brand; carefully managed optics rivaling the old Vaseline-covered lens, the controlled information, and a constant demand that you believe the edit instead of your eyes.

2025 In Trump's Rotting Body

We just hope it hurts!

THE CANKLES OF JULY

Ah, July, the most pleasant month of the year in the mid-Atlantic region if you are already a wet towel. That was the month Trump attended the World Cup Club Final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. There he sat, suit pants riding up to mid-shin so that the entire world noticed his ankles were swollen so badly that he looked as if he might be walking around on a couple of basketballs.

Even Leavitt couldn't spin that away. What excuse could she give, that the president was shaking ankles with world leaders? No, in this case the White House was forced to admit that the healthiest president ever had developed chronic venous insufficiency, a very common condition for people his age that can come about from too much sitting. Or alternately, from too much standing still. Like, say, you are a person who gives a lot of speeches while rooted behind a lectern.

2025 In Trump's Rotting Body

We just hope it hurts!

MAN! WOMAN! TV! GIRAFFE!

Trump also got an MRI during his October checkup. Given that doctors usually only order one of those up if they have something specific they want to examine more closely " a cyst on an organ, a vicious alien with acid for blood growing in the chest cavity " we could not help but wonder what it was that his medical team might be worried about.

Trump could not name the body part that the MRI examined. But predictably, he told reporters the MRI was "perfect," and that doctors had never seen so perfect an MRI. Asked again a few weeks later why he had the MRI, all he could say was that doctors hadn't been checking his brain, because otherwise how could he have aced a cognitive test, duh.

We were left speechless by this answer, though not for the reasons Trump probably would have thought.

Here's one artist's rendering of that magical moment