Amid widespread comment about his apparent difficulty walking down a ramp at West Point on Saturday, Donald Trump tweeted a predictably angry and dismissive response.
“The ramp that I descended after my West Point commencement speech was very long and steep,” the president wrote, “had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery. The last thing I was going to do is ‘fall’ for the Fake News to have fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!”
In equally familiar fashion, the tweet only stoked the flames, prompting observers to note that West Point superintendent Darryl A Williams did not seem to find the ramp difficult, and that Trump did not in fact run its last section, instead taking just a few quicker steps.
Others noted that, as so often, Trump had previously tweeted a complaint about his predecessor … running down a slope.
“The way President Obama runs down the stairs of Air Force 1,” Trump wrote on 22 April 2014, “hopping & bobbing all the way, is so inelegant and unpresidential. Do not fall!
Footage was also uncovered of Obama walking confidently up a ramp at West Point.
Trump, who turned 74 on Sunday, was the oldest person ever to assume the presidency, after an election in which he questioned the health of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, notably mockingly imitating her stumble at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York. Speculation about Trump’s health has duly dogged his time in office.
Such speculation continued on Saturday with regard to an unscheduled visit to hospital last November, which the White House said at the time was for Trump’s annual physical. No such results have yet been published.
Observers focused on Trump’s familiar use of two hands to drink from a bottle of water during his West Point visit.
Bandy Lee, a Yale psychiatrist and editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, wrote on Twitter: “This is a persistent neurological sign that, combined with others, would be concerning enough to require a brain scan.”
Donald Trump and Theresa May awkwardly hold hands at White House
Trump’s apparent struggles with the ramp echoed scenes from January 2017, shortly after his inauguration, when he seemed unsteady while walking on a gentle slope at the White House and took the then British prime minister Theresa May awkwardly by the hand.
Of Trump’s walk down the ramp at West Point, Lee added: “The uneven gait is something I have remarked at least since his fall visit to Walter Reed, and a forward-leaning posture is associated with the difficulty holding a cup. Note that there has not been an annual report on his health this year.”
Trump was due for a restful birthday on Sunday, spent at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He was due to return to Washington in the late afternoon.
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