President Donald Trump appeared to have swelling around his ankles in photographs taken Friday, September 11, 2026, at the Pentagon’s observance marking 25 years since the September 11 attacks, renewing attention on a condition the White House disclosed more than a year ago.
First Lady Melania Trump sat beside the president, 80, at the service in Arlington, Virginia. Every other living president and their spouses turned out instead for the ceremony at Ground Zero in New York. Pictures taken that morning caught him slouching, and his ankles appeared to spill over the edges of his shoes.
As the names of the victims were read aloud, some social media users said the president appeared to nod off or struggle to stay awake.
The images have real limits, though. A photograph on its own cannot pin down what is causing swelling in a given person, how severe it is or whether it is progressing, and it cannot show whether what was visible at the Pentagon represented any change in Trump’s condition. No official, at the White House or anywhere else, suggested that the president was having an acute medical problem during the ceremony, and officials have confirmed no change in his condition.
What the White House Has Disclosed
Doctors did not arrive at the underlying diagnosis recently. In a statement issued July 17, 2025, the White House said a comprehensive examination had identified chronic venous insufficiency in Trump, then 79, after swelling developed in his lower legs. Bilateral lower-extremity venous Doppler ultrasound scans formed part of the workup.
Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, the White House physician, called it “a benign and common condition,” which doctors see particularly in people over 70. Testing produced no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease, according to his July 2025 memorandum. Earlier, at Trump’s annual physical on April 11, 2025, Barbabella had reported unimpaired blood flow to the president’s extremities and declared him in excellent health.
A White House memorandum in May 2026 offered the most recent public accounting, saying Trump remained in “excellent health.” Barbabella described the swelling in the president’s lower legs as mild, better than what he had documented a year earlier, and also wrote that the president was fully fit to carry out the duties of his office.
Public scrutiny of the president’s appearance did not stop with the anniversary. On September 16, during a trip to North Carolina to campaign for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, footage of Trump speaking to reporters outside Air Force One again showed a box-like bulge under the back of his suit jacket. White House aide Margo Martin posted the video to an Instagram story. The bulge was first spotted during a 60 Minutes interview in April 2026 and surfaced again last month in Long Island rally footage shared by former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump has at times been accused of appearing to drag his right leg, and in recent months he has been seen tapping that leg while walking.
Hugh Dougherty, executive editor of the Daily Beast, addressed the bulge on September 19: “We don’t know anything about Trump’s health. We have had reports that don’t stand up to medical scrutiny. This week we have a group of psychiatrists who are saying there are significant reasons to look at his social media output and say, this is somebody who is exhibiting psychiatric problems and requires examination.”
How the Condition Works
Valves inside the leg veins bring on chronic venous insufficiency when they stop returning blood to the heart efficiently. Blood pools in the lower limbs, and the lower legs and ankles can swell. It becomes more common as people age, and clinicians describe it as a chronic problem managed over a lifetime rather than cured.
How many people live with it is a matter of differing estimates. The Cleveland Clinic says the condition affects about one in 20 adults. Other researchers estimate that 10 percent to 35 percent of adults have it, and that most of those affected are 65 or older. Trump ranks as the second oldest president in U.S. history.
Doctors reach for unglamorous remedies as standard management: walking and other activity, keeping the feet elevated while seated, and medical-grade compression stockings. Because leg swelling can stem from a range of other medical issues, clinicians assess patients with a venous reflux ultrasound — a measure of how well the veins move blood back toward the heart — rather than judging by appearance.
The president has described his own routine. He wore compression socks for a time before giving them up, he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on January 1, 2026, and he now tries not to stay seated for long stretches. He golfs for exercise, though he often rides a cart.
Responding to the bulge speculation, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a letter to the Daily Beast: “Only the glue-sniffing degenerates at the failing Daily Beast would obsessively push baseless conspiracy theories about President Trump, and that’s because they suffer from a severe, crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome that has completely rotted their peanut-sized brains.”
In the same letter, Ingle said: “President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, relentless work ethic, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration when Democrats and the legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people.” As of September 17, the White House had not said what the bump was.
Inside the Pentagon Ceremony
Hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, killing the 184 people the service honored. Nearly 3,000 people died in that coordinated attack across New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Among the senior officials in attendance was Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The Department of War described the event as honoring the people killed and recognizing the consequences the country still carries.
Trump announced in August that he would mark the anniversary in Washington, so his appearance at the Pentagon rather than at the main commemoration came as no surprise. Vice President JD Vance attended the Ground Zero ceremony, joined there by four former presidents — Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In his Pentagon remarks, the president honored the victims, survivors, first responders and military personnel, and he drew a line from the period that followed the attacks to his administration’s military campaign against Iran.
A White House honor tied to the attacks also fell within the anniversary week. Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 8 to Welles Crowther, the equities trader and volunteer firefighter known as “the man in the red bandana.” Crowther was 24 when he died helping others escape the South Tower, and he is credited with helping as many as 18 people escape.
Trump flew out of Washington, D.C., on the night of September 11, bound for Ireland and a weekend stay. The White House has issued no statement about the photographs from the Pentagon.