RFK Jr debuts his own hand bruise after Trump has been sporting one for months

The close-up photograph caught both Kennedy’s hand and Trump’s, with the president’s also showing signs of discoloration at the knuckle, covered with concealer.

While Kennedy has often been frank about his medical history in the past, he has yet to comment on the bruise.

He memorably revealed during the 2024 presidential campaign that he had once been blighted by a brain worm. RFK Jr explained that he had experienced “cognitive problems” in 2012, sought help from a specialist, and learned that the black shape showing up in scans was a dead parasite.

The issues he had been experiencing were “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” he said in a deposition given as part of his divorce proceedings.

Kennedy has also previously been struck down with mercury poisoning – caused by the excessive consumption of tuna fish sandwiches, he said – suffered from an irregular heartbeat and from spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder that afflicts the vocal cords and causes his rasping voice.

Trump’s bruises have attracted attention throughout his second term, with the oldest examples spotted so far dating back to summer 2024 and election night that year, when he was seen with a smudge of makeup on the back of his hand in a picture posted to Instagram by his granddaughter Kai Trump.

He was first asked about the marks by Time magazine in December 2024 when he said the problem had arisen “from shaking hands with thousands of people.”

While still president-elect, he was seen with alarming red sores on his fingers and palms and the issues have been remarked upon many times since, including earlier this year when he addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, when he held an event for coal miners in February, and when he hosted NCAA champions the Indiana Hoosiers in Washington last week.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and the president’s personal physician, Dr Sean Barbabella, have insisted that Trump is in “excellent health” and repeated the handshaking explanation while also attributing it to his consumption of aspirin.

“This is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen,” Dr Barbabella wrote in an official memo last July, referring to the bruises.

“This is a well-known and benign side effect of aspirin therapy.”

Trump addressed his painkiller intake in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in January in which he said: “I’m a little superstitious. They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart.

“I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”

Satirist Stephen Colbert joked about the bruising as the president visited China last week to meet with Xi Jinping when the men shared a closely-watched handshake in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

“Xi better be careful,” Colbert warned. “If he touches Trump for too long, he might catch a case of five-day-old banana hand.”

As his 80th birthday approaches, the president spent time on Saturday posting flattering memes about his alleged youthful vigor on Truth Social.

His next check-up at Walter Reed Military Medical Center is on May 26.