Trump lashes out after critics highlight unsteady
walk down West Point ramp
Trump didn’t want to ‘fall for the Fake News to have
fun with’
Speculation about his health has dogged his time in
office
Martin
Pengelly
@MartinPengelly
Sun 14 Jun
2020 14.21 BSTLast modified on Sun 14 Jun 2020 14.34 BST
Amid
widespread comment about his apparent difficulty walking down a ramp at West
Point on Saturday, Donald Trump tweeted a predictably angry and dismissive
response.
“The ramp
that I descended after my West Point commencement speech was very long and
steep,” the president wrote, “had no handrail and, most importantly, was very
slippery. The last thing I was going to do is ‘fall’ for the Fake News to have
fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!”
In equally
familiar fashion, the tweet only stoked the flames, prompting observers to note
that West Point superintendent Darryl A Williams did not seem to find the ramp
difficult, and that Trump did not in fact run its last section, instead taking
just a few quicker steps.
Others
noted that, as so often, Trump had previously tweeted a complaint about his
predecessor … running down a slope.
“The way
President Obama runs down the stairs of Air Force 1,” Trump wrote on 22 April
2014, “hopping & bobbing all the way, is so inelegant and unpresidential.
Do not fall!
Footage was
also uncovered of Obama walking confidently up a ramp at West Point.
Trump, who
turned 74 on Sunday, was the oldest person ever to assume the presidency, after
an election in which he questioned the health of his opponent, Hillary Clinton,
notably mockingly imitating her stumble at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New
York. Speculation about Trump’s health has duly dogged his time in office.
Such
speculation continued on Saturday with regard to an unscheduled visit to
hospital last November, which the White House said at the time was for Trump’s
annual physical. No such results have yet been published.
Observers
focused on Trump’s familiar use of two hands to drink from a bottle of water
during his West Point visit.
Bandy Lee,
a Yale psychiatrist and editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, wrote on
Twitter: “This is a persistent neurological sign that, combined with others,
would be concerning enough to require a brain scan.”
Trump’s
apparent struggles with the ramp echoed scenes from January 2017, shortly after
his inauguration, when he seemed unsteady while walking on a gentle slope at
the White House and took the then British prime minister Theresa May awkwardly
by the hand.
Of Trump’s
walk down the ramp at West Point, Lee added: “The uneven gait is something I
have remarked at least since his fall visit to Walter Reed, and a
forward-leaning posture is associated with the difficulty holding a cup. Note
that there has not been an annual report on his health this year.”
Trump was
due for a restful birthday on Sunday, spent at his golf club in Bedminster, New
Jersey. He was due to return to Washington in the late afternoon.
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