New York Magazine reporter Ben Terris recently sat down with President Donald Trump for nearly an hour to discuss his health. Now, he's saying the unsightly bruise on the back of Trump's hand is apparently getting worse — and that the president is "very self-conscious" about it.

In a Monday interview with The Bulwark's Tim Miller, Terris went into detail about his encounter with Trump in the Oval Office. He told Miller that while he hadn't expected White House physicians to be present during his conversation with the president, he decided to focus the bulk of his questions on Trump's health — which the president and his staffers welcomed.

According to Terris, both White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt both pushed the narrative that the 79 year-old president had never been in better health. Miller suggested that Terris refer to Trump as a "superhuman president," which Terris made into the article's headline in what he called a "tongue-in-cheek" reference. Leavitt urged one of the physicians present in the meeting to repeat their comment to Terris that they thought Trump was in better health than former President Barack Obama — who is 15 years younger than Trump and has a disciplined workout routine.

However, Terris said the key moment that stuck out to him from his sit-down with the president was seeing his bruised hand. Terris conceded that Trump's excessive use of aspirin was the likely culprit for the bruise, as using the drug has been known to cause skin to bruise easily. But the New York Magazine writer went on to tell Miller that Trump's hands looked "gross" up-close and that his hands were unusually "soft" due to a lack of "physical labor over the years."

"But then on the other side, the backside of his hand, it looked kind of like rhino hide," Terris said. "It was very dry. The bruise had kind of taken over the whole back of his hand."

Terris also mentioned that he was president at the Oval Office for the president's meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and that Trump "spent the whole time covering his hand with his other hand so nobody could see it." The president reportedly continued to "look at it like he was checking the time."

"He is very self-conscious about it," Terris said. "In fact, I talked to somebody who had a meeting with Trump and he had a bruise on the back of his hand and he wanted to like, relate with the president about it. He's like, 'look, I got one too.' And Trump shot it down."

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President Donald Trump repeatedly insists that his health, both physical and mental, is first-rate. But his niece, psychologist/author Mary Trump, often points to behavior that, she says, shows poor mental health. And recurring bruising on Trump's hands, CNN's Adam Cancryn reports, continues to raise questions about the president's physical health.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claims that the bruising occurs because Trump is shaking hands with a lot of people. But according to Cancryn, medical experts are questioning that explanation.

"Across a series of events last week," Cancryn explains in an article published on December 31, "the 79-year-old Trump appeared with discoloration or light bruising on the back of his left hand, in addition to the more persistent bruise on his right hand that has been visible for months. The new bruise appears to complicate the White House's explanation that the right-handed Trump developed the bruising through constant handshaking along with a regular regimen of aspirin that can make such discoloration more common."

Cancryn continues, "And while medical experts told CNN there is no fresh cause for concern, calling it a likely benign condition common in older people, they warned that Trump's reluctance to be more transparent about his health only threatens to intensify the scrutiny that he's struggled all year to escape…. The fresh bruising on Trump’s left hand represents the latest development to fuel speculation about his health since he returned to the White House — a sensitive topic for him that he's sought to counter by boasting frequently about his vigor."

Dr. Jeffrey Linder, chief of general internal medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in the Chicago area, told CNN that Trump and his allies are "feeding the curiosity cycle" where the bruises are concerned.

Linder notes, "He's in the public eye; he has a certain image he wants to portray, and even these minor things detract from that image."

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who was a cardiologist for the late Vice President Dick Cheney and is now a professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., points out that bruising on an older person's hands isn't necessarily symptomatic of a severe health problem.

Reiner told CNN, "Bruising can be just simply a one-off thing when you have some trauma, you bump into something. Aspirin will make you more prone to bleeding…. The question now is less medical than it is transparency."

Read Adam Cancryn's full article for CNN at this link.

When reporters noticed a bruise on President Donald Trump's right hand back in February, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attributed to the discoloration to all the hand-shaking he does.

Trump, Leavitt told reporters, "meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other president in history.”

More recently, the subject came up again when a reporter asked Leavitt about a bandage Trump was wearing on that hand — to which she responded, "We've…. given you an explanation for that in the past. The president is literally constantly shaking hands. The Oval Office is like Grand Central Terminal."

But MS NOW's Steve Benen believes that Leavitt's explanation isn't holding up.

New York Magazine's Margaret Hartmann, on Monday, December 29, reported that Trump also had bruising on his left hand.

According to Hartmann, "(Trump) also had some purple discoloration on the back of his left hand…. The left-hand bruising, as well as the right-hand makeup, was still visible on Sunday when Trump met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago."

Benen, in a December 30 column, argues, "I can imagine a scenario in which White House officials simply said, 'Look, Trump is the oldest elected president in American history. He'll soon turn 80. Like it or not, sometimes octogenarians' hands don't look great.' But they're not saying this, at least not yet. Instead, the official line from Team Trump is that handshaking led to bruising — despite the fact that the issue is now affecting his left hand, and the president is not ambidextrous."

The MS NOW columnist and "Rachel Maddow Show" producer continues, "Complicating matters further is the broader context. This is the same president who's struggled with questions about a recent MRI — Trump has said he has 'no idea' which part of his body was scanned — which came around the same time that he appeared to fall asleep at a couple of White House events…. It's entirely possible there’s nothing to this story, but given Trump's unfortunate record, he hasn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt on questions of medical transparency."

Steve Benen's full MS NOW column is available at this link.

In a striking Oval Office moment Monday, President Donald Trump seemed unusually eager to shield a bruise on his hand from view. He repeatedly obscured his right hand, resting it beneath his left or even hiding both hands beneath the desk.

Earlier on Friday, public speculation had intensified following a visible patch of makeup on the president's hand.

Although the mismatched concealer that sparked speculation earlier in the week had faded, the discolored bruise remained noticeable despite his efforts, the Daily Beast reports. When he wasn’t clasping one hand over the other, Trump discreetly tucked both out of sigh. Still, during moments like signing executive orders or gesturing, the mark remained unmistakable, per the report.

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Just a few days earlier, a heavy glob of tan concealer had been clearly apparent on his hand, its tone noticeably at odds with his natural skin tone. Trump made a similar attempt to cover it during multiple public appearances in Washington, D.C. The cosmetic choice quickly drew criticism and renewed medical curiosity.

Since February, toward the latter half of most months, photos have repeatedly shown him applying makeup to — or trying to hide — bruising on his hand.

The report further noted that the White House has consistently attributed these marks to what Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized as the president’s tireless handshaking. "He meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other president in history," the press secretary said in February

Trump, who turned 79 earlier this year, was diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI) in July, a condition common among those his age, in which veins struggle to return blood from the legs to the heart. The condition often results in swelling and discoloration.

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Both the physical signs and his cosmetic maneuvers have become emblematic of a broader debate over how illness and aging are presented, or concealed, in the public eye.

President Donald Trump was dealt a bruising reality check this week, according to the Washington Post, as a new survey found striking evidence that voters are no longer being duped by his bravado, signaling a "huge shift in politics."

On Thursday, the Post published a report sharing the findings of a joint poll it conducted alongside ABC News and Ipsos, concerning the popularity of Trump's various vanity pet projects and rebranding efforts. The results, especially as they pertained to his much-discussed White House ballroom, were striking, with the report revealing that "Americans reject President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom by a 2-to-1 margin."

"Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose Trump’s decision to tear down the White House’s East Wing to make way for his planned ballroom, funded by about $400 million in private donations, while 28 percent support the project," the Post explained. "That is the same division found in an October poll. Reactions are split among partisan lines; about two-thirds of Republicans support the project, while 61 percent of independents and 87 percent of Democrats oppose it."

Aside from those concrete numbers, there was also a damning enthusiasm gap, with three times as many respondents saying that "strongly oppose" the ballroom as said they "strongly support" it. The span of time during which the poll was conducted included the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which Trump and his allies have used as proof that the ballroom is needed for security reasons. The Post explained that this push seemed to lift Republican support for the project from 62 to 72 percent. The overall boost in support from the incident was not clear, with the total support moving from 27 to 31 points, driven almost exclusively by new conservatives and Trump supporters entering the respondent pool.

"A statistical analysis accounting for that shift in the sample’s political and demographic makeup found no significant change in opinion associated with the shooting," the Post noted.

"The ballroom is frivolous, in my opinion," a right-leaning Florida independent told the pollsters, adding that she was "100 percent backing [the preservationists] and what they’re doing," as they sue to halt the project.

Trump's other vanity projects, including his proposed 250-foot arch and plans to add his name to paper money, are also widely unpopular.

"Fifty-two percent of Americans are against the planned arch, compared with 21 percent who favor it. A slight majority of Republicans (51 percent) support the project, while most independents (57 percent) and Democrats (78 percent) oppose it," the report added. "A federal panel, packed with Trump allies, earlier this month gave preliminary approval to the project’s design. The idea of Trump’s signature on paper money is even less popular, with 68 percent of Americans opposed to the Treasury plan, while 12 percent support it. The plan provokes a negative reaction from Republicans, with 28 percent in favor and 40 percent opposed."

In a post to X, Neera Tanden, a Democratic political consultant and one-time adviser to former President Joe Biden, summed up why these results signaled a major negative shift for Trump.

"A huge shift in politics is that Trump can no longer convince people of anything," Tanden wrote. "They really see through him."

The depths of conservative men's subservience to President Donald Trump reached a new low this week, after the release of what The Bulwark called the "absurd" and "absolutely wild" results of a survey exposing their strange stance on his physical strength.

On Friday, Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell released a new video where she, alongside writer Catherine Rampell, reacted to an unorthodox new poll from YouGov. In it, the survey asked respondents if they believed that an 8-year-old boy, a typical American man and, finally, themselves, could physically defeat Trump in a fight.

As Rampell explained, the poll originated from an odd exchange Trump had with a young boy during an Oval Office event touting the return of the old Presidential Fitness Exam standards, in which he asked the boy if he believed he could take him in a fight.

"So it was Trump who threw down the gauntlet to begin with," Rampell said. "And YouGov was, let's see what America thinks."

And "what America thinks," it turns out, breaks down in a "funny" fashion along gender and partisan lines. According to the poll's findings, respondents who identified as Democratic women were more likely to believe they could take the president than those who identified as Republican men, painting a bizarre picture of the cult-like image of strength conservative men still appear to have of the president.

Breaking it down further, Longwell shared that 66 percent of respondents said that the average American male could beat Trump in a fight, while only 10 percent said that the president would win. Along party lines, 33 percent of Republicans said that they would win, compared to 75 percent of Democrats. Democratic respondents were also notably more down on Trump's odds against an 8-year-old boy, with 54 percent believing that the boy would win, compared to just 6 percent of Republicans.

"This is an interesting psychological experiment about partisan politics," Longwell said. "Because Republicans are like, 'Big daddy Trump could beat me, he could get me, I'm scared of him,' whereas Democrats are like, 'Man, an 8-year-old boy would kick that guy's a——."

Along partisan and gender lines, the survey found that 71 percent of Democratic women, and 84 percent of men, believed that they could beat Trump. By comparison, just 46 percent of Republican men, and 19 percent of women, said that they could beat him. Notably, about 29 percent of GOP men and 26 percent of GOP women said that they were unsure. The number of uncertain Democrats was much lower.

Longwell noted that these results paint a grim picture of the "need" Republican men have to believe that Trump could "dominate" them. Rampell said that it was unclear how much of the results were driven by self-esteem issues, versus the need to believe Trump is physically powerful.

In the spirit of the conversation, Rampell herself added that, while she is notably shorter and lighter than the president, and has no experience with physical fights, she also believed that she could best Trump, given the many obvious signs of his declining physical health.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top aides insist that when it looks like President Donald Trump is resting his eyes during an event, he's actually taking notes in his lap.

In an extensive conversation with the president about his health, Ben Terris wrote in New York Magazine that Trump was "clutching pieces of paper labeled TALKING POINTS" while chatting with two people he said were doctors.

"And by the way, I don’t know them, they’re not my best friends," Trump promised.

"They’re respected doctors that practice out of Walter Reed," Trump told Terris. "And they happen to be taking care of me for anything — but I don’t need any taking care of because I’m in perfect health. I do purposely every year or less a physical, because I think the American people should know that the president is healthy so you don’t get a guy like the last one, who was the worst thing that ever happened to older people. Because I know people in their 90s that are 100 percent. Gary Player is 90 years old. He shot 70 with me the other day."

Trump then threatened to "sue the ass off of New York Magazine" if Terris wrote a "bad story." Trump then commented, "No one is going to care, I guess."

Terris explained that speculation online is running rampant about the president's health, particularly about the odd bruising that appears on his hand. During a Sept. 11 ceremony, his face suddenly looked "droopy." In Oct. it was announced he got an MRI at Walter Reed and then said he couldn't remember which region they were looking at in his body. He's been spotted limping at Mar-a-Lago, and when he suggested a military action against Greenland over not getting the Nobel Peace Prize, his mental fitness was questioned.

Terris wrote, "He stands a little hunched and his eyes are puffy, but he looks pretty good for a 79-year-old."

One staffer told Terris that Trump's hearing is "isn’t what it used to be." The staffer noted that they don't "think Trump has noticed this about himself, despite regularly leaning in and requesting people speak up."

The hand bruise comes from shaking hands with hundreds of people and the fact that he takes too much aspirin each day, doctors and the White House have claimed. When bruises popped up on his left hand, questions surfaced again. At the World Economic Forum, Trump said he hit his hand on a table, leading to a dark purple, almost black, bruise.

Terris wrote, "If there was a conspiracy of silence protecting Joe Biden when questions arose about his mental and physical decline, there’s a cacophony around Trump."

He said that it's as if every person around Trump is trained to tell tales of Trump's "godlike virility."

Trump's niece, Mary Trump, recalled her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., as he slipped into Alzheimer’s Disease, or what the president called, "Like an Alzheimer’s thing."

She said that the one time she noticed it, Fred Trump was at an event honoring him when he suddenly had a "deer in headlights" look on his face. Now she sees that look on her uncle.

“Sometimes it does not seem like he’s oriented to time and place,” she said. “And on occasion, I do see that deer-in-the-headlights look."

“Well, I don’t have it," Trump told Terris of Alzheimer's Disease.

He also claimed to Terris that he has amazing mental cognition because "I drink milk." He bragged that he has taken a lot of cognitive tests and "aced" them.

"Why Trump feels the need to take so many cognitive tests is a question he didn’t want to linger on," commented Terris.

Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, told Terris in a conversation in press secretary Karoline Leavitt's office, “It’s not dozing. Sometimes, if he’s thinking about something — and I made that mistake at first too — he adopts a pose. He leans back or leans forward a little bit, and he either closes his eyes or looks down — because he often takes notes in his lap."

Leavitt says when Trump leans back and closes his eyes, he’s actually “actively listening.”

Terris said every conversation was like this, including with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said, “The guy is too healthy … He’s too active.”

Rubio also said that he hides from Trump on Air Force One because he wants to get some sleep.

“There’s an office with two couches, and I usually want to sleep on one of those two couches,” Rubio said. “But what I do is I cocoon myself in a blanket. I cover my head. I look like a mummy. And I do that because I know that at some point on the flight, he’s going to emerge from the cabin and start prowling the hallways to see who is awake. I want him to think it’s a staffer who fell asleep. I don’t want him to see his secretary of State sleeping on a couch and think, Oh, this guy is weak.”

He, too, agreed that Trump leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed is a listening mechanism.

Trump told Terris that those meetings are "boring as hell."

“I’m going around a room, and I’ve got 28 guys — the last one was three and a half hours. I have to sit back and listen, and I move my hand so that people will know I’m listening. I’m hearing every word, and I can’t wait to get out," said Trump.

Read the extensive profile here.