Trump, 79, Admits He’ll ‘Probably’ Fall Down Stairs One Day
The president began his speech to Navy sailors, who are going unpaid due to the government shutdown, 45 minutes late.
Donald Trump predicted that he will “one day” fall down stairs while also claiming that he was declared a better “physical specimen” than Barack Obama and George W. Bush during a meandering speech to Navy sailors Sunday.
The 79-year-old president began speaking at the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary celebration in Norfolk, Virginia roughly 45 minutes behind schedule, leaving active-duty servicemembers, who remain unpaid amid the government shutdown, standing in the sun.
Trump opened his speech by honoring Navy members for their service, but it didn’t take long for him to boast about his own achievements and lash out at his political opponents.
The president claimed that Rep. Ronny Jackson, the disgraced former White House physician who served during his first term and before that for Obama, now 64, and Bush, now 79, had proclaimed him as the “healthiest” of the three presidents.
“At a press conference, they asked [Jackson], ‘Who’s in the best shape? Who’s the healthiest? Who’s the strongest? Who’s the best physical specimen of the three?’ He said, ‘That’s easy: President Donald Trump,” Trump boasted to the crowd. “I said, ‘I love this guy.’”

President Donald Trump claimed his White House physician said he was a better “physical specimen” than former President Barack Obama.
Jim Watson/Getty Images
Jackson is a retired Navy one-star admiral who was demoted in 2022 amid allegations of making inappropriate sexual comments and violating alcohol policies before being reinstated last month.
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Newsweek reported last November that Jackson, who now represents a Texas district in Congress, never publicly said Trump was healthier than Obama or any other president, after Trump made similar claims that month.
However, Jackson, 58, did give a glowing assessment of the president’s health during his first term in 2018, saying Trump has “incredible genes.”

“He has incredibly good genes, and it’s just the way God made him,” Ronny Jackson said of Donald Trump in 2018, when he was serving as White House physician.
Jabin Botsford/Getty Images
Trump also took shots at his other predecessor, Joe Biden, 82, before slipping in a surprisingly unvarnished acknowledgment of his own advancing age.
“We had a horrible, horrible president who had no clue what the hell was happening. The chances of him walking down those stairs successfully were not good,” he said. “And I have to be careful because one day I’m gonna probably fall.”
The commander-in-chief then revealed what he apparently tells himself while walking down stairs.
“I always say, ‘Walk down the steps nice and slowly.’ You ever notice? I don’t have to bop down the stairs. ‘Walk nice and slowly,’” he said proudly.
Trump made similar comments during his speech to top generals and admirals at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, last week.

The president’s bulging cankles have often been caught on camera. Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency.
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
The aging president was filmed in July stumbling on the stairs going up to Air Force One. He has also struggled to walk in a straight line on multiple occasions, fueling speculation about his health.
Trump, who sports a recurring bruise on his right hand, has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition common in seniors in which blood pools in the legs due to poor circulation.
In his address at the Naval Station Norfolk on Sunday, Trump also boasted about sending the National Guard into U.S. cities and gloated about renaming the Gulf of Mexico and the Department of Defense.
Blaming the shutdown on Democrats, he promised “across-the-board pay raises” for service members, drawing cheers from the crowd.
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