By Wonderwall.com Editors
1:00pm PST, Jan 21, 2024
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Donald Trump was on his way to court in New York City on Jan. 17 when a casual wave at supporters revealed mysterious red splotches on his hand, finger and thumb. Photos of his crimson-spotted hand quickly ignited an inferno of theories about what caused it, including no small amount of speculation that the former president could be exhibiting sores related to an STD. Other suggestions ranged from ketchup to Iowa caucus-induced frostbite to red marker.
One day after the photo was taken — as hashtags like "#TrumpBumps" and "#SyphillisDon" trended on X — TMZ reported that "sources tied to the Trump campaign" claimed the red stuff was smeared blood caused by a "paper cut."
By that time, though, the red stuff had already taken on a life of its own, with social media users, late night hosts and news outlets alike sharing increasingly wild hypotheses about what, exactly, that red stuff was.
Keep reading for a closer look at Don's mystery splotches, then click through for the best reactions to the pics…
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"Trump bumps"
Here's a close-up look at Donald Trump's red-marked right hand as he waved at cameras outside Trump Tower in New York City on Jan. 17. He was on his way to the second day of testimony in E. Jean Carroll's $10 million defamation case against him when this was taken.
That almost explains the popular theory shared on X claiming he may have touched a Bible "and it burned him." (For those of you keeping score at home, the former president wasn't testifying in the trial, so any Bible handling would have been outside of federal court.)
Mere hours after his hand looked like this, though, the red marks were gone … or were they?
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Now you see 'em, now you don't
Here's Donald Trump on Wall Street in New York City on the evening of Jan. 17. From this vantage point, his mystery splotches appeared to have healed or been wiped away.
But a closer look seems to show faint marks where the spots were seen earlier…
The post-op
Here's an unedited close-up of Donald Trump's hand a few hours after he was photographed with red spots on it.
As the X account Patriot Takes pointed out, "His spots appear less red, but you can still see them."
Others, meanwhile, focused instead on the red spotted pics from earlier in the day and went straight for ideas that might explain them, including a certain unsavory medical condition…
"Secondary syphilis"?
"They don't look like cuts to me, they look like sores," said former political strategist James Carville during a livestream on Politicon.
"I've asked a number of M.D.s what medical condition manifests itself through hand sores, and the answer is immediate and unanimous: secondary syphilis."
Neurosyphilis?
Jimmy Kimmel rolled with that theory on his Jan. 18 show. Referencing the former president's "viral moment," Jimmy pointed out in his monologue that red sores are "a common symptom of syphilis, which could mean Donald Trump has syphilis or syphilis has Donald Trump."
The late night host went on to rehash something Trump once "famously said" about having avoided STDs "when he was single in the '90s [which] was his personal Vietnam … but if he has syphilis, that would mean the only Vietnam he avoided was Vietnam," Jimmy quipped.
"It's possible Trump may have a condition called neurosyphilis," the comedy star continued, acknowledging that he's "not a doctor," though he can look up symptoms online. He then launched into a spoof-y segment allegedly from the Cleveland Clinic.
As a voiceover listed the various symptoms of neurosyphilis, a video montage showed Trump screaming about lights in his eyes ("mood swings"), looking lost at Buckingham Palace while wandering away from Queen Elizabeth II ("confusion"), claiming without evidence that he won the presidential election in 2020 ("delusions") and making dangerous suggestions about ways to cure COVID-19 ("mania").
"Word salad"-related?
Jimmy Kimmel wasn't the only one who thought Donald Trump's behavior might indicate he's contracted syphilis. As one user suggested on X, "Trump's word salad is getting much worse, and he has obvious signs on his hands."
Other users and a few news outlets posted links to the disjointed and at times unintelligible campaign speech he gave in New Hampshire on the night of Jan. 17 after the red spots appeared:
"We're also going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your — you know, your political beliefs, what they do," he said, in part. "They want to debank you, and we're going to debank — think of this. They want to take away your rights, they want to take away your country, the things you're doing."
From there, he suddenly started talking about cars.
Fingerpainting?
On "The Tonight Show" on Jan. 18, Jimmy Fallon's spoof-CNN segment suggested Donald Trump may have "grabbed a hotdog straight off the 7-Eleven rollers," "touched a Bible" or gotten "rug burn from Donald Trump Jr.'s leash." (Ouch.)
In the end, the joke-y bit concluded that Donald — who recently lost the latest in a string of attorneys who've quit while working for him — had been "fingerpainting the face of his new lawyer, Wilson the volleyball."
("Wilson the volleyball" was the inanimate object Tom Hanks' character made pals with in the desert island movie "Castaway.")
Leftovers?
Donald Trump — seen here eating pizza with firefighters in Waukee, Iowa — may simply have had the remnants of his latest meal on his hands, some social media users theorized. Perhaps it was nice warm pizza pie, one person mused.
"Let the man enjoy a jelly donut," wrote another.
Ketchup?
Pizza's not the only Donald Trump-approved food that could have left a red residue, of course.
"What if he just had some nuggs and it's ketchup," one X user offered.
A golf injury?
Business Insider, meanwhile, helpfully interviewed a dermatologist for a medical take on the red spots.
"Dr. Joshua Zeichner, an associate professor of dermatology at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, told Business Insider that Trump most likely had a rash — which could be caused by almost anything," the outlet reported.
"Rashes on the hands can be caused by a variety of factors, ranging from infections to inflammatory conditions to external exposures," the doctor told Business Insider.
Among the dermatologist's top suggestions were that Donald Trump may have washed his hands too much, drying them out. Or the avid golfer may have gotten blisters from "friction from activities like golf, weightlifting or baseball."
A court injury?
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough asked, "Is it magic marker? Because it looks like he has a sore on his index finger there."
Lisa Rubin then reminded him that Donald Trump reportedly lost his temper with the judge during the defamation trial.
"There was a point in time during the day where Trump, very frustrated with Judge Kaplan, banged his hands down on the table," she said. "I doubt that the blisters or marks that were seen there come from that. But could they be exacerbated by that? Perhaps."
Frostbite?
"I'm going with grabbing a handrail in sub-zero Iowa while not wearing gloves. Not a fan; but the wound pattern matches," posted another social media sleuth, referencing Donald Trump's recent campaign stop in Iowa during the caucuses there.
"Ooh, I was thinking a burn, but frostbite works as well, and I couldn't see Trump trying to cook anything," someone else replied.
Bronzer application gone wrong?
Still other social media users thought perhaps Donald Trump's red spots were caused by bronzer gone wrong — he reportedly applies his own — or, as one person put it on X, "hand makeup."
"Look at those hands …"
While we didn't see much in the way of Marco Rubio references out there in social media-land, it's hard to forget the time Donald Trump's hands made headlines on the 2016 campaign trail.
At the time, Trump's rival in the GOP race for the presidential nomination, Marco Rubio, complained that Trump was "always calling me 'Little Marco,'" per ABC News. He went on to joke that Trump is "taller than me, he's like 6′ 2″, which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5' 2″ … Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands … You can't trust them."
The now-infamous if lowbrow joke irked Trump, who then raised the matter of his hand size repeatedly, including during the next GOP debate.
"Look at those hands," Trump said during the debate in Detroit, showing off his hands to the audience. "Are they small hands?" And he referred to my hands — if they are small, something else must be small," Trump said, adding, "I guarantee you there is no problem."
