U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday rejected a wave of social media rumors falsely claiming he was gravely ill or dead, calling the speculation “fake news.”
The 79-year-old leader addressed the issue at a White House press conference after days of online chatter fueled by his absence from public events last week.
“Reports about my health are completely false,” Trump said, seeking to put an end to the speculation.
The rumors gained traction on X, formerly Twitter, where the hashtag #TrumpDead appeared in more than 104,000 posts between Friday and Tuesday, drawing some 35.3 million views, according to figures from the misinformation watchdog NewsGuard.
Much of the content included manipulated images and out-of-context photos. Others pointed to online traffic maps allegedly showing road closures near the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, using them as supposed evidence that Trump was hospitalized.
Despite Trump’s denial, fact-checkers warn that the persistence and scale of such misinformation highlight the challenges of combating politically charged falsehoods in the digital age.
