A very much alive President Donald Trump reacted to social media rumors suggesting he was ‘dead’ during a White House event on Tuesday.
The president faced questions from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy regarding swirling rumors that over Labor Day weekend, he was mysteriously absent or possibly ‘dead’ after skipping public events at the White House for a few days.
Trump said he did not see the social media trend himself, but that he got reports on it from his staff.
‘I have heard, it’s sort of crazy… It’s so fake … I was very active this Labor Day,’ he said.
Trump joked that the media was not holding him to the same standard as former President Joe Biden.
‘I skipped public events for two days, and they speculated something was wrong. When Biden did the same for months, it went unnoticed, despite his visible health concerns,’ Trump responded.
On Tuesday, the president spoke and fielded questions from reporters for nearly 50 minutes in the Oval Office, indicating that rumors of his demise were greatly overstated.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event at the White House and takes questions from reporters
U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the White House on September 1, 2025
On Friday, the hashtag ‘whereistrump’ went viral on social media as people speculated why the president had not held a public event.
Despite the rumors, the president was spotted by reporters traveling to and from his golf club in Sterling, Virginia throughout the weekend.
Trump was originally scheduled to go to his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club over Labor Day weekend but he stayed in Washington, D.C. instead.
He was spotted on Saturday heading to the golf course with his granddaughter Kai, 18.
He also golfed with former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden on Sunday and golfed again on the Labor Day holiday.
A photo of the president with local radio host John Fredericks, which surfaced on Sunday, was also met with skepticism, but he confirmed its authenticity.
‘The picture was taken on August 31, 2025, by my wife Anne around 4:00 PM EST at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, following golf and lunch,’ he clarified. ‘The Secret Service approved the photo at the president’s request. Thank you and have a great day!’
But skeptical users on social media questioned the reality of the photo, running it through AI programs to see if it was real.
Some users argued that Grok had identified the photo as being from May 2024, while others speculated it originated from Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago club or Bedminster, NJ.
Others claimed the photo was fake or doctored or questioned why Fredricks’ pants were wrinkled and examined the carpet and even the nearby staff for whether they could have been from a different club.
Fredricks repeatedly posted to skeptics that the photo was in fact taken by his wife.
He also posted a video to TikTok and X to address the ‘Trump deniers’ on social media about the controversy.
Conservative radio host John Fredricks and President Donald Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump departs Trump National Golf Club on September 1
‘It was just insane, but the reality of this is that we are now in a place here where anything you see on the internet, anything that’s AI, you can’t trust any of it,’ he said.
Fredricks appeared incredulous by the number of people who repeatedly attacked his photo as doctored or a fake, or an earlier photo.
‘It was out of like the Cartoon Network, the number of people that engaged in this and thought this photo was fake and somehow believed the president was dead, or sick or in the hospital, or he’s not there … it was absolutely incredible,’ he said.
