Donald Trump's Suit Was Lumpy in Odd Ways During a September Press Conference

Fashion is, at least to some extent, the eye of the beholder, but President Trump's tailoring decisions have always been a little strange. His suits have never seemed to fit him particularly well (not that I'm an expert).

Even by those relatively low standards, though, some people noticed that Trump's suit looked particularly strange during his Sept. 2 "announcement." That announcement, which was about moving U.S. space command from Colorado to Alabama, came after several days of speculation about the president's health. Now, many want to know why his suit was so lumpy. Here's what we know.

The odd lumps in Trump's suit were first pointed out by Derek Guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social), a channel that has become well known on Bluesky and X (formerly Twitter) for his commentary on men's fashion.

"Strange. Fabric doesn't normally fall like that across an arm," he wrote.

In a follow-up post, he wrote, "FWIW, shoulder padding and shoulder extension have nothing to do with how a sleeve should hang."

Derek didn't offer any speculation as to why the suit might hang in a strange way, but others in replies under his post offered a variety of speculative explanations for why the suit might seem to be almost clinging to his arm.

The most common explanation for Trump's odd suit hang seemed to be that it was connected to a shoulder brace for a stroke related to hemiplegic shoulder sublaxation.

If you're not sure what any of that means, the theory suggests that Trump dislocated his shoulder after having a stroke, which is a relatively common occurrence because your muscles can be relaxed in unusual ways. He might be wearing a shoulder brace while his shoulder recovers, and another corresponding video suggests that he is having some trouble with his right arm more generally.

Of course, all of this is purely speculative. We have no idea whether Trump had a stroke or not, and there has been no reporting to suggest that he did. Even so, the hang of the suit only added more fuel to the theorizing about Trump's recent absence from the limelight over Labor Day weekend and whether it was the result of some sort of health issue that is being hidden from the public.

If Trump did have a stroke or suffer some other health emergency in the past few days, he recovered fairly quickly and returned to public life. What remains to be seen, though, is whether his health appears to continue to deteriorate over the weeks or months ahead.

During the end of President Biden's term in office, his health was a major news story. Trump, who is almost as old, might be facing a similar level of scrutiny in the years to come whether he's actually deteriorating the way the speculation suggests he is or not. The health of the president is always a major issue, and Trump has been less than forthcoming about his historically.