President Donald Trump addresses the annual American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans on Jan. 14. The bandage was still visible on his right hand during his trip. | Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images White House Trump's bloody hand injury attracts armchair doctors The White House told POLITICO that the president, who is due for his annual physical, suffered a minor injury.

President Donald Trump is often called thin-skinned. It’s usually not meant literally.

But the back of Trump’s right hand was covered with an adhesive bandage during a Thursday trip to McAllen, Texas, with blood visibly seeping through the dressing. His hand was similarly bandaged again on Monday as he departed for a trip to New Orleans.

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Armchair medics studying photos that circulated online this week leapt to dramatic conclusions. But the White House said on Tuesday that Trump sustained the injury while playing with his 12-year-old son. “The President was having fun and joking around with his son Barron and scratched his hand,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told POLITICO.

While there is no evidence that the injury is related to Trump’s broader health, it happens to come almost exactly one year after Trump received his last known physical exam, after which then-presidential physician Ronny Jackson gave him a famously glowing bill of health. Sanders said that Trump will receive an annual physical again this year but did not specify a date. Details are being finalized and will be released publicly, she said.



A close-up of the back of Trump’s right hand. | AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Recent past presidents have varied in how frequently they have released medical information to the public. Barack Obama released the results of physicals at least four times during his eight years in office as well as periodic statements about minor health issues.

Trump, 72, was the oldest president ever sworn in when he assumed the presidency in 2017.

Despite Trump’s age, he has striven to project an image of physical vitality. In response to a December 2015 report from POLITICO, Trump released an exuberant letter signed by a New York gastroenterologist. The letter claimed Trump’s lab results were “astonishingly excellent” and that he “would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” The doctor, Harold Bornstein, later confessed that Trump had dictated the contents of that letter.

On the campaign trail, Trump, who is overweight bordering on obese by medical standards, has regularly ridiculed the vitality of his opponents. He proclaimed that his Republican rival Jeb Bush was “low energy” and that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had neither “the strength” nor “the stamina” to serve as president.

The bandages, which are flesh-colored and appear to be the size of a standard Band-Aid, are not conspicuous, but last Thursday, one was visible both before and during Trump’s border visit to Texas.

On Monday, a bandage was again visible on Trump’s hand before departed for New Orleans but was no longer present later in the day.

A Thursday photo posted to Sean Hannity’s Instagram account shows visible bloodstains on Trump’s bandage.

In a curious twist, a bandage is also visible on the back of Hannity’s left hand as the pair stand filming an interview.

An avid practitioner of mixed martial arts, Hannity told POLITICO he recently injured both hands on another fighter’s head-gear. Hannity said he did not notice the bandage on Trump’s hand and that the matching bandages were coincidental.

“What,” Hannity asked, “Do you think we colluded to have Band-Aids on?"