President Donald Trump wore a mask and sat in the back of an SUV as he waved to his supporters outside the Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Trump, who is undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at the military hospital, appeared in the unannounced drive-by on Sunday evening in a move that is being lambasted by critics as a dangerous political stunt.
"President Trump took a short, last-minute motorcade ride to wave to his supporters outside and has now returned to the Presidential Suite inside Walter Reed," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. "Appropriate measures" had been taken, he added.
Trump Used a Body Double for Drive-By, Claim Conspiracy Theorists
Trump has since returned to his Presidential Suite inside Walter Reed but video footage of the president waving out to the crowd of supporters from the back seat of a black four-wheel drive with two masked Secret Service agents in the front seat has led some conspiracy theorists to believe that a body double was used for the photo-op.
A Twitter user who goes by @DrGJackBrown tweeted that the president's vehicle is exposed and "vulnerable to attack," which is something the Secret Service would not allow, leading to the claim that it is a body double.
Other users jumped on the theory with their own explanations. While one user pointed out "discrepancies" in the vein on Trump's hands, others drew attention to "differences" in his facial features, comparing his public outing with previous appearances.
However, other users were quick to debunk the theory that the president was using a body double and that the man in the presidential suburban was none other than Trump himself. Social media has been abuzz with some wild conspiracy theories ever since Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were diagnosed with COVID-19.
While some allege the president is faking the diagnosis to win the election in a last-ditch attempt to defeat Democratic rival and former Vice President Joe Biden, others claim Trump is much sicker than we're being told.
