Trump Will Break This Record If He Dies In Office

At the end of August 2025, the internet was awash with a rumor that a cover-up was afoot. It was said that Donald J. Trump, the 46th President of the United States, was dead.

The rumor came after users noticed that Trump, who usually can't wait to get in front of cameras and shape the narrative around his administration, had been missing from public life for multiple days. Despite images of the president golfing during this time, rumors continued to circulate, forcing Trump to address the issue on his return on September 2, claiming that he was in perfect health and that the speculation was "fake news."

If the rumor were true, Trump, who at the time of writing is 79 years old, would have been by far the oldest U.S. president to die in office, beating William Henry Harrison, who was 68 years old when he died back in 1841, by 11 years. Of the eight presidents who have died in office, four have been assassinated, while four, including Harrison, have died of natural causes.

Age is a subject that has worked both for and against Donald Trump in recent years. His victory in the 2024 Presidential Election was aided by questions over the age of his Democratic rival, then-
President Joe Biden, who was already 81 at the start of the year. Trump's campaign and his supporters repeatedly trumpeted that Biden was far too old to serve a second term in office — indeed, he would have been the oldest president ever to do so — and pointed to a decreased capacity to fulfil his presidential duties. 

Fears over Biden's advanced age seemed to have been justified during a presidential debate between the two nominees in June 2024, when Biden appeared confused and inarticulate. He dropped out shortly after to be replaced on the ticket by his Vice President, Kamala Harris, who despite a strong start in the polls, was unable to successfully challenge Trump.

However, Trump himself is only three years younger than Biden. Though attempts by Democrats to turn the question of age against Trump after Biden dropped out ultimately failed, as he reentered office, the criticism has begun to stick.

As with Joe Biden, critics of President Donald J. Trump have identified multiple occasions in which his speech and behavior seem to demonstrate a reduction in his cognitive abilities, raising questions as to his suitability when it comes to making executive decisions within his administration.

Such questions had indeed existed during Trump's first administration, during which time he countered with the claim that he was a "stable genius." However, during his second term, his behavior, particularly his use of speech, has grown increasingly bizarre. As well as countless instances of the president forgetting basic facts about the political world and his own administration, his public addresses contain more non-sequiturs than ever. 

As Harry Segal, a senior lecturer in the psychology department at Cornell University, told The Guardian, Trump is repeatedly found to be "digressing without thinking – he'll just switch topics without self-regulation, without having a coherent narrative." Trump has also increasingly peppered his speech with impossible claims, including that his uncle taught the Unabomber at MIT, though the dates do not fit and there is no record of the Unabomber having ever studied at MIT. Such instances have led sections of the media to ask whether the U.S. president is suffering from dementia, a condition that becomes more common as people age.

It is something of an understatement to say that Donald Trump has bucked convention in many aspects of his presidency. But it is notable that he has also done so in terms of his lack of openness when it comes to his physical health. Typically, presidential nominees share details of their medical exams with the public. But, controversially, Trump has refused, releasing instead only a statement from a medical professional stating that he was in good health.

Nevertheless, some have picked up on clues that have revealed the truth of Trump's health. The president has been photographed on multiple occasions with bruises on the back of his hand, which have led to conspiracy theories that he has an undisclosed medical condition. In one parry, the White House claimed that the bruise — which he has sometimes covered with make-up — was the result of the number of handshakes he had to perform. Elsewhere, it has been described as a side effect of his taking regular aspirin as a preventative against heart disease.

Trump has also been photographed exhibiting swelling around his feet and lower legs. And indeed in July 2025, his team finally confirmed that Trump suffers from chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), a common condition suffered by one in three Americans that causes the veins to have difficulty pumping blood from the extremities back to the heart. CVI increases the risk of developing blood clots, but is not immediately life-threatening.

Despite reassurances from Donald Trump and his team, the issue of his health — and what would happen were it to take a sudden downward turn — has continued to be raised on both sides of the political divide. Democrats might feasibly look to signs that Trump's health is declining as a sign that he may be unable to fulfill a full term, an eventuality that his detractors would look on favorably considering the sweeping changes, many of which have been criticized as anti-democratic, he has already made barely one year into his administration.

However, many on the left have cautioned that the political landscape would be unlikely to become any more progressive were Trump to die in office. Were that to happen, power would pass to his vice president, the nationalist JD Vance, who has already voiced his willingness to step into the role of president, telling USA Today that though Trump is in "incredibly good health ... if, God forbid, there's a terrible tragedy, I can't think of a better on the job training than I've gotten over the last 200 days."