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Trump's hand
by John D. Muccigrosso
tl;dr Trump’s bruised, and now perpetually made-up, right hand is the latest incarnation of issues he seems to have had with it since 2020.
Discussion has recently turned back to Donald Trump’s perpetually bruised right hand and larger questions of his overall health. The hand thing has been going on for a while. NewsWeek did a piece back in February, but the press on the whole seem uninterested, so I suspect the precipitating event may have been his apparent dozing off during an early December cabinet meeting, even when Marco Rubio was talking to him from the seat next to his. There was also a flare-up of interest back in July, but after the press secretary gave out the rather absurd explanation that it was due to excessive hand-shaking, the press went back to ignoring it.
There’s a lot to talk about here, but in the post I want to address just the hand thing, something I’ve been tracking for a while now and posting about with the hashtag #potusIV. As someone who is not remotely a medical professional of any kind, I’m also going to stay clear of guessing about why his hand (hands, really) is like that.
For images I’m going to use small, cropped bits of photos that are publicly available on the Getty Images website and provide links to the originals. I should add here that Getty Images has been on this for a while now, regularly publishing photos on their site that show only his affected hand (and once even his swollen ankles).
Speaking of photographs, keep in mind that I’ve got access only to what’s on Getty Image’s website. This means that the resolution is limited and the quality as well, since these are jpegs. Photographers likely have photos they haven’t given to Getty and surely better resolution versions of the images that are posted.
The status quo
The back of Donald Trump’s right hand now sports heavy, sometimes almost latex-looking, cover-up makeup. The fact that the color does not quite match his skin (an issue he has long had with his face paint) makes it fairly easy to see.
Several times in the past few weeks, he’s also had a band-aid on, sometimes two, which suggests that it’s more than bruising that needed covering during that period. There are in fact times when it also looks like there’s a small puncture-like wound, consistent with that.
The makeup is there to cover up significant bruising which is visible when the makeup wears off (as it did during his visit to King Charles over the summer) or when he simply doesn’t put any makeup on.
The latter is a rare event, but did happen as recently as late August of this year.
Cover-up
Besides the makeup Trump is also covering up the back of his right hand when he sits by placing his left hand over it. This is now his usual pose while seated at the Resolute desk, for example (and he is often sitting during meetings these days).
Back in his first term, he preferred to sit with his fingers intertwined or his right over his left, grasping his forearms.
I don’t have hard data on this, but he also seems to go out of his way sometimes to avoid using his right hand. No pictures attached, but on December 12 he shook hands with his left while seated instead of extending his right. On July 7, he reached to take a letter from Netanyahu with his left hand, keeping the right below the table, and on the same day he covered his right hand during a handshake at a photo shoot.
No hand left behind
Whatever’s going on is not confined to his right hand. It was on July 29 of this year that I first noticed something on his left hand as he was getting off Air Force 1.
By the next day he covered that up with makeup. The bruising or makeup or puncture-like wound appears occasionally on the left hand still. It’s not as intense as on the right, but it’s definitely there. I think I see it back in 2022 (below).
History
Although Trump has been wearing makeup on his right hand pretty much continually since the election last year, issues with the hand seem to be traceable to 2020. In October he wore a band-aid for an extended period starting on the 10th, in the same spot he has recently. He had been hospitalized with COVID-19 from October 2–5, less than a week earlier. There’s no band-aid visible when he returns from the hospital on the 5th (not shown), but the 10th is when he next appears in public and a couple of band-aids are visible then (overlapping exactly as they have recently). Reports were that he was being treated in the White House during that period. If the issue is related to his COVID-19 therapy, it seems odd that it would still be going on.
By the 12th, he’s down to one band-aid, and it’s there until the 18th, when you can see the scab(?) in its place.
After Trump leaves office, there are a lot fewer photos of him until the campaigning starts up in earnest for 2024, so it’s hard to say how consistently there is something there. It does definitely look like things come and go, that is, there are photos were the hand looks fine. Still, over the following years, marks are occasionally visible, as in this June 17, 2022 shot.
I’d also say this July 20, 2022 photo, taken at Ivana Trump’s funeral, shows makeup on both hands, or at least bruising on the left. (Other photos from the same day seem to show it as well, though none are particularly close up.)
Here’s one from a golf outing less than a month later which provides an opportunity to see his lower arms which are usually covered by his suits. The bruising on his right hand is pretty extensive and his left forearm sports two band-aids that were not there during a July golf event at Bedminster.
EDIT Jan-4-2026 - Another rare shot of Trump’s arm above the wrist, this time the right one, was taken in July of 2025 and shows some bruising. Of course the discoloration from the makeup is also there on the hand.
The Start
Is whatever’s going on visible earlier than October 2020? Yes, I’d say so.
The earliest pretty clear evidence is from July 15, 2020, in this photo of Trump at his desk. You can see some light bruising, possibly under some makeup. (This is a day where Trump mostly covers his right hand with his left which strikes me as a bit of a tell, as I noted above. Have a look at other photos from that day.)
Then again on July 23, 2020, where you can see bruising right near his pinkie and perhaps some makeup in the middle of his hand.
I haven’t found anything earlier than this (and I’ve looked at more photos of Trump than I’d care to admit).
Timeline
Given all this, I’d put the timeline this way:
- July 2020: early COVID-19, some bruising and maybe light makeup appears on the back of Trump’s right hand. I find the photos convincing, but opinions may differ.
- October 2020: after his stay at Walter Reed and five-day “quarantine” in the White House, Trump emerges with band-aids on the back of his right hand. When he removes them on October 18, he’s got some kind of scab. This evidence is solid.
- Mid-2022: significant brusing is visible on Trump’s right hand and on one of the rare occasions when it was visible, his left forearm had a couple of band-aids.
- Late-2024: regular application of fairly heavy makeup on the back of Trump’s right hand. It’s pretty easy to see as it has a different texture and color from his skin.
- Mid-2025: Trump’s left hand now occasionally shows definite similar—though less extensive—bruising, and his right has had band-aids on it again.
Be careful not to confuse the visible evidence of Trump’s hands with whatever is causing it. It’s entirely possible that in 2020 Trump’s hands start to show signs of something that had already been going on, but without leaving those signs. It’s also possible that what was happening immediately following his COVID-19 treatments was not from the same thing that subsequent marks now are (though personally I suspect it’s the same).
Did I miss anything?
Tags - politics