This image of President Donald Trump leaving the White House prior to the Labor Day weekend raced around the internet and fed rumors that he was either already dead or had suffered a catastrophic health episode. Photo credit: posted on r/thebulwark, September 1, 2025; retrieved on September 6, 2025.
We begin with this clip, in which Trump responds to internet rumors about his health.
News of the week:
* Best buzz for political junkies this week? The shellacking that Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took from the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, not just from Democrats but from members of his own party. A major point of contention was whether the Department, under Kennedy’s direction had or had not limited access to the Covid vaccine, and whether he had lied in his confirmation hearings about imposing his anti-vaxx views on the nation. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey has now issued her own executive order requiring all insurance companies doing business in the state to pay for vaccines approved prior to Kennedy’s action.
* The dice are rolling. We expected, and received late Friday, an announcement by Iowa Senator Joni “We’re all Going to Die” Ernst that she is stepping aside, signaling the possibility of a Democratic pickup in an agricultural state hammered by Trump trade policies. This makes six Republicans and four Democrats who are vacating the premises. Then there is Maine Governor Janet Mills who may challenge Republican Senator Susan Collins. Democrats need to hold what they have and flip four additional seats for a majority.
* Takes one to know one? Virginia’s Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was scheduled to visit the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at its headquarters. The event was cancelled when right-wing influencer Laura Loomer accused Warner repeatedly, and without foundation, of being a Russian asset, and asserting that the Senator be tried for treason. The visit was classified, and Loomer has no security clearance: pardon me—who is a Russian asset?
* The New York Post scooped the media world on Thursday when the Murdoch-owned tabloid announced that Paramount is in talks to buy Bari Weiss’s Free Press for a possible $200 million, and put Weiss in a senior editorial role at CBS. In three years, Weiss has gone from self-styled “ideological diversity hire” (her words, not mine) at the New York Times Slack channel to being a wealthy and powerful media figure in her own right.
Your hosts:
Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.
Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
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Our focus: The national obsession with Donald Trump’s health
* Over Labor Day weekend, social media was suddenly abuzz with rumors that Donald Trump was either ill or dead, and that the White House was covering it up.
* According to Rolling Stone, although he claimed otherwise, Trump was aware of the rumors.
* Reporters and conspiracists alike have been tracking Trump’s health since the 2016 campaign. During and after the 2024 campaign, observers believed that the President was dragging his foot, called attention bruises on his hands, and swelling in his legs and ankles. All of these things are symptoms of various ailments associated with old age; Trump has been diagnosed with venous insufficiency, also associated with aging.
* In July, 2024, following an assassination attempt in Butler, PA, there was also speculation about how trauma might affect Trump’s mental health.
* Then, there have been accusations of drug use. In 2024, there were reports that speed, Xanax, and other narcotics were easily available in the White House during first Trump administration; these rumors were fueled at various points by ongoing scrutiny of Trump sniffing during debates and other public appearances.
* Right wing conspiracists often have difficulty knowing whether political celebrities are dead or alive, sick or well. For example, there is a longstanding rumor, stoked by QAnon, that JFK, Jr. is alive, while the 2016 Trump campaign stoked longstanding conspiracies that Hillary Clinton was ill.
* Contemporary conspiracies, whether QAnon or BlueAnon, are also fed by the fact that presidents and their staffs have hidden ill health. But there is an important exception: in 1955, right before he agreed to run for a second term, President Dwight Eisenhower made the unusual decision to go public with the fact he had had a heart attack.
* By contrast, John F. Kennedy went to great lengths to keep his many health problems, which included Addison’s disease and debilitating back problems for which he took opiates, a secret.
* In 2011, Ronald Reagan, Jr. said that he believed his father had Alzheimer’s while he was still president, although it was not diagnosed until 6 years later. We still have no satisfactory explanation for Joe Biden’s erratic public performances and seeming memory lapses, except that his staff was aware of and strategized around them. President Trump is known to lie about things as neutral as his height and weight.
* Does the public need to know about the President’s health—and has concealing that knowledge been a problem for past administrations?
* The age of our political class continues to be a problem.Some Democrats are paying attention to concerns that politicians are simply too old. After endorsing New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, 78-year-old Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler announced that he would not run in 2026 and explicitly cited his age.
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What we want to go viral:
* Neil recommends The Los Altos Story, a 1990 documentary available on YouTube. It’s about how AIDS came to “a family oriented community with quiet, tree-shaded streets…located in the heart of Silicon Valley,” and the town’s Rotary Club, which stepped up to not just fight the disease, but also change minds about the people who had it.
* Claire wants you to read Daniel Currel, “Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class,” (The New York Times, August 28, 2025), a deeply reported piece about the lengths to which Americans of average income go for a Disney World vacation—and how Big Mouse picks their pockets.
Short takes:
* Donald Trump “has already started fund-raising off the social-media frenzy surrounding his supposed death over Labor Day weekend,” Susan Glasser writes at The New Yorker. But what does he not want you to know about? Last week’s epic string of failed lawsuits, low approval ratings, and a stalled agenda. “I am well aware that this is not currently the dominant narrative about Trump 2.0, which, whether you like it or hate it, has generally been covered as a sweeping and surprisingly successful attack on pillars of the American establishment in and out of government,” Glasser continues. “But, depending on how the next few months play out, it could be. And that’s the point: What’s clear from Trump’s first seven months back in power is that he has embarked on a breathtaking effort to reshape the American Presidency. What’s far from apparent yet is whether and to what extent he will succeed.” (September 6, 2025)
* The Department of Defense is supposedly now the Department of War, a rebranding done by executive order that reverts to World War II. “How far the rebranding might go is unclear, but any comprehensive effort would saddle taxpayers with costs in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars,” Dell Cameron explains at Wired, “as every sign, logo, uniform, computer system, and piece of official paperwork tied to the Pentagon’s identity across the globe would need to be replaced.” An initiative in the Biden administration “to recommend changes at military installations commemorating the Confederacy carried a projected cost of $39 million and covered only nine bases. The Defense Department’s real property portfolio spans hundreds of thousands of facilities, from major bases to small outposts worldwide.” (September 5, 2025)
* Sorority rush “is bigger and more competitive than ever, driven by a boom in TikTok content detailing the process,” and if life isn’t difficult or more expensive enough, according to Annie Joy Williams at The Atlantic, moms are now hiring coaches ti help their daughters maximize bids. “Parents invest in lots of kids’ activities; private coaching is now a common feature of competitive athletics. And getting their kids into the right sorority, parents believe, might help them make the kinds of connections that can get them job interviews someday. At my college, a rumor went around that one mother injured herself by falling out of a tree outside a sorority house—people said she’d been trying to get a peek at her daughter’s performance during the final round of rush.” (September 5, 2025)
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