A boxy shape appeared again under President Donald Trump’s suit jacket on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, when Trump gave Chinese President Xi Jinping a tour of Marine One during a state visit. An apparent boxy protrusion showed beneath the back of his jacket, and video of the tour went viral. As of Sept. 25, the White House still had not said what the box-like shape is.
Independent journalist Aaron Rupar posted a clip of the Marine One tour on X on Sept. 24. “i once again ask what in the hell is going on with Trump’s huge ass and the contraption he has on it,” he wrote. The Lincoln Project replied to the post: “@depend how big do you make these????” Another user quipped: “I would estimate that Trump is 25 percent larger than Xi except for his butt region, which is 400 percent larger than Xi. It’s so disproportionately huge, that his jacket cannot even lie straight.”
After the Sept. 24 footage, social media users speculated that the rigid, square outline could be a medical device, a back support brace, specialized orthopedic equipment, or a heavy-duty ballistic vest or armored plating tailored under his suit. With no explanation from the administration, the internet has filled the vacuum. One widely shared post in August likened the bump to a shoplifted Thanksgiving turkey.
A recurring claim that Trump wears adult diapers is not new. The rumor is reported to trace back to Noel Casler, a comedian and former staffer on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” who has claimed Trump soiled himself and wore adult diapers during the show’s production in the late 2000s. Michael Wolff, a biographer of the president and a prominent skeptic of the diaper claim, admitted to the Daily Beast podcast “Inside Trump’s Head” that there is no basis to support it.
What the White House Said
Asked about the bulge, White House spokesman Davis Ingle emailed a statement to the Daily Beast on Thursday, Sept. 17, that went after the news organization rather than the bulge.
“Only the glue-sniffing degenerates at the failing Daily Beast would obsessively push baseless conspiracy theories about President Trump, and that’s because they suffer from a severe, crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome that has completely rotted their peanut-sized brains,” Ingle said. He continued in the same statement: “President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, relentless work ethic, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration when Democrats and the legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people.”
Earlier Sightings This Year
The shape first drew notice in April, when viewers of Trump’s “60 Minutes” appearance zeroed in on an odd outline beneath his jacket. Weeks later, cameras at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, May 25, caught a bulge in his clothing and set off another round of online commentary. Trump appeared at that ceremony alongside Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Observers also noticed similar box-like shapes at a rally in Texas earlier this year.
Karoline Leavitt, then-White House press secretary, who has since left the post, posted footage from a rally on Long Island on X on Friday, Aug. 14. In the clip, Trump walks down from the stage toward the crowd, and something rigid pushes the back of his suit jacket outward without shifting as he moves. Rupar wrote on X after the Long Island video circulated: “It looks like he has some sort of contraption back there.”
The bump surfaced again on Wednesday, Sept. 16, during a campaign trip to North Carolina, with the shape clearly visible through the back of the suit of the 80-year-old president. That footage came from a short video posted to an Instagram story by White House aide Margo Martin, who filmed Trump taking questions from reporters in front of Air Force One. The video showed the shape pushing the jacket fabric into an unnatural wrinkle, and it stayed fixed in place while he spoke.
Scrutiny of the President’s Health
Trump is the oldest person ever inaugurated as president. He has been photographed with bruised hands, swollen ankles and a neck rash. His right leg, critics have charged, drags or taps as he moves. Public events have also caught him asleep, and cameras recorded him seemingly unable to hold his eyes open at a September 11 attacks memorial.
New footage of Trump walking away from reporters toward Marine One circulated online as of Sept. 28, and viewers there fixed on his left leg. One person asked, “What’s with his left leg?” Another replied, “I noticed that, too. It’s like he’s flinging it forward instead of stepping normally.”
The X account @Acyn posted the Marine One walking clip. Rupar wrote on X about separate footage of Trump walking a red carpet ahead of Xi’s arrival: “Watch Trump walking here — he can’t walk in a straight line.”
Online commenters also speculated about frontotemporal dementia, with one writing: “I just learned that frontotemporal dementia causes people to lean forward at an odd angle, slowly drift to one side while trying to walk a straight line, and tune out and fall asleep at public events if the event isn’t directly engaging them.”
Questions about his mental sharpness have dogged him just as persistently. The president has bragged repeatedly about how he did on a dementia screening exam, which he characterizes as a measure of intelligence. At the Long Island rally, Trump appeared to misplace the name of Saritha Komatireddy, his endorsed candidate for New York attorney general. He told the crowd that day had been the first time he met her, then called out from the podium to locate her.
An open letter dated April 30, signed by 36 physicians, called for Trump’s removal from office under the 25th Amendment. Henry David Abraham, a psychiatrist who signed the letter, said in a recent SiriusXM interview with host Dean Obeidallah that the president had become “worse” since the letter. “I mean, if an airline pilot had half of the symptoms that the president of the United States has, we would not let him on an airplane; we certainly wouldn’t want to fly with him,” Abraham said.
A checkup at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on May 26 kept him there for more than three hours. Trump posted on Truth Social after the checkup that “everything” had “checked out PERFECTLY,” and he called the visit his “6 month physical.” Administration officials have insisted he remains in excellent health.