Trump Keeps Right Hand Hidden During Roosevelt Room Drug Partnership Announcement Amid Health Concerns

Donald Trump kept his right hand firmly hidden during Friday's pharmaceutical announcement in the Roosevelt Room, clasping his hands together throughout the event and sparking fresh speculation about his mysterious recurring bruise.

Live camera footage showed the 79-year-old president standing with heads of nine major pharmaceutical companies as he brokered deals to lower drug prices. But rather than his usual gesturing, Trump's hands remained tightly locked together, with his left hand fixed atop his right, completely covering it. A short clip posted to X, captioned 'Trump is now covering his black hand even while standing', drew immediate questions from social media users about whether he was deliberately hiding the discolouration that has plagued him for months.

A Persistent Mystery

Trump's right hand has been a particular point of public fixation amid growing health concerns. The bruise first appeared weeks after the November 2024 presidential election and has been spotted repeatedly since—sometimes covered with patchy concealer, other times left fully visible and discoloured.

The bruise has appeared at multiple high-profile events. Photos from February showed Trump's hand thickly coated in concealer during his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House. In August, the bruise was unmistakable—dark and spread across the back of his right hand—during a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung.

Official Explanation vs Medical Scepticism

In July, Trump's doctor Sean Barbabella released a statement saying the bruising was 'consistent with minor soft-tissue irritation from frequent hand shaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen'.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has repeatedly attributed the bruise to handshaking injuries. Trump himself has echoed this explanation. In a December interview with Time magazine, he said simply: 'It's from shaking hands with thousands of people'.

Medical Experts Question Official Explanation

But not everyone is convinced. Dr Neal Patel, a primary care physician in Orange County, California, told the Daily Mail that the handshaking excuse seemed 'a bit of a stretch'. 'President Trump has had something like this in the past, and from my experience and my patients, I would put that lower on the list of possibilities', he said.

Trump has also been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a 'benign and common' condition in people over 70 where leg veins struggle to push blood back to the heart. The White House announced this in July after photos showed swelling in Trump's legs.

Why This Matters

At 79, Trump is the oldest person ever inaugurated as president of the United States. That fact alone has intensified scrutiny over his health, particularly when visible signs like bruising and swelling appear repeatedly in public.

The aspirin explanation does hold medical weight—the drug interferes with platelet function, making bruising more likely, especially in older adults with thinner blood vessels. But the persistent nature of the bruising, combined with the varying explanations and use of concealer, has fuelled ongoing questions about transparency. A May poll found 45 percent of respondents said Trump had been 'not at all' or 'not very' transparent about his health. Whether Friday's tightly clasped hands were simply a coincidence or a deliberate choice to avoid scrutiny, the speculation is not likely to die down anytime soon.

Drug Deals Overshadowed by Health Questions

The Roosevelt Room event was meant to highlight Trump's 'Most Favored Nation' drug pricing initiative. Nine companies—Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi—agreed to sell medications directly to consumers through his soon-to-launch TrumpRx website.