‘How Can Anyone Think He Is Ok?’’: Awkward Moment Caught on Camera as Melania Steps In to Help Trump, Leaving Fans More Worried About His Health

A Moment That Spoke Vol­umes

On Sep­tem­ber 4, 2025, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and First Lady Mela­nia Trump host­ed a high-pro­file din­ner at the White House. Among the dis­tin­guished guests were the heads of some of our nation’s lead­ing tech companies—Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zucker­berg of Meta, and Bill Gates of Microsoft
The Eco­nom­ic Times.

Dur­ing the gath­er­ing, a reporter asked the Pres­i­dent a ques­tion about whether he planned to speak soon with Russia’s Pres­i­dent Putin, fol­low­ing a call with Ukraine’s leader.

At that moment, Pres­i­dent Trump appeared to mis­hear or become con­fused. He tilt­ed his head, paused, and asked, “What did—what?” His wife Mela­nia qui­et­ly leaned in and whis­pered the ques­tion back to him: “If you will speak with Pres­i­dent Putin in the near future.” With sup­port, he answered sim­ply, “Yes, I will be.” The exchange was brief but notice­ably care­ful

Reac­tions and Reflec­tions

Footage of that scene made its way across the inter­net, stir­ring con­cern among many:

One social media user said, “How can any­one think he is ok? Shame on the peo­ple around him.”

Anoth­er remarked, “He’s not com­pe­tent.”

A third added, “This would be the lead sto­ry of Fox News for a week if [for­mer first lady] Jill Biden had done this with Joe.”

Mean­while, many of Pres­i­dent Trump’s sup­port­ers remained wor­ried. His absence from pub­lic view between August 26 and 28 had already sparked con­ver­sa­tions. The moment raised fur­ther ques­tions about his health and well-being.

President’s Expla­na­tion & Offi­cial Response

Just days ear­li­er, on Sep­tem­ber 2, Pres­i­dent Trump held a press con­fer­ence to address rumors that he had passed away—rumors that trend­ed across social media under the hash­tag #Trump­Is­Dead. When con­front­ed, he respond­ed with good humor: “Real­ly? I didn’t see that.” Yet he also admit­ted, “No, I heard that. I get reports.”

In anoth­er moment of light­ness at the din­ner, he thanked the media: “I want to thank the media. They’ve been very nice late­ly. Although I’m still here.” He fol­lowed with, “They made a cou­ple of bad pre­dic­tions. That was not good. I’ve nev­er had that feel­ing before.” Bill Gates appeared seri­ous, while Mark Zucker­berg laughed qui­et­ly

Trump even­tu­al­ly returned to the pub­lic eye, quash­ing the inac­cu­rate rumors of his per­ma­nent demise. Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Sept. 2, the POTUS had the chance to respond to peo­ple think­ing he had died.

“Real­ly? I didn’t see that,” Trump told Fox News cor­re­spon­dent Peter Doocy when con­front­ed with infor­ma­tion about the social media engage­ment num­bers con­nect­ed to his false­ly assumed pass­ing.

How­ev­er, the New York City native imme­di­ate­ly con­tra­dict­ed him­self about not know­ing about the #Trump­Is­Dead trend when he said, “No, I heard that. I get reports.”

Two days lat­er, Trump cracked a joke about social media killing him off dur­ing his meet­ing with the tech giants in the White House. 

“I want to thank the media. They’ve been very nice late­ly. Although I’m still here,” he quipped on cam­era. Zucker­berg could be seen laugh­ing, but Gates sat stone-faced. 

Trump con­tin­ued, “They made a cou­ple of bad pre­dic­tions. That was not good. I’ve nev­er had that feel­ing before.”

In July, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion acknowl­edged that the pres­i­dent was diag­nosed with chron­ic venous insuf­fi­cien­cy, which caus­es swelling in his low­er legs.

Physi­cian to the pres­i­dent Sean Barba­bel­la described the con­di­tion as “benign and com­mon” and insist­ed Trump “remains in excel­lent health,” despite wide­spread con­cern about his well-being.