President Donald Trump has been sending signals that his health is fading — and he's losing his grip on power, according to an analyst.
The 79-year-old president has been dozing off in public meetings and showing other signs of diminished health, including mysterious bruising on his hand and swollen ankles. Foreign policy analyst David Rothkopf told The Daily Beast Podcast that Trump seemed aware of his eventual demise.
“They actually are serious issues because they are evidence that Donald Trump is at the end of his story,” Rothkopf said. “They are signs to the world that this is not a vigorous person. This is not a person whose biography is about their future. It’s about their past, and everybody can see that in Washington.”
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are both trying to position themselves to succeed Trump in the White House, he said, as the president dozes off beside them.
“Marco Rubio is sitting there going, you know, ‘The president is the most vigorous, brilliant man ever,'" Rothkopf said, "and Trump’s like passed out next to him, you know?”
Rothkopf also highlighted the president's increasingly frequent moves to rename institutions and buildings after himself — such as the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center — as another indicator that Trump is thinking about his legacy as his life comes to a close.
“If you’re watching his Band-Aids and you’re watching his cankles, the number of things he wants to name after himself, I think, is a good indicator of how ill he thinks he is, because this is just him looking for some legacy,” Rothkopf said. “It’s just him saying, ‘Well, that could make me immortal.’ Because I think he realizes that he is shuffling off this mortal coil sooner rather than later.”