In November 2025, a photo circulated online that some social media users said authentically showed U.S. President Donald Trump looking on as a man fainted during a White House news conference in November 2025 (archived, archived).
One Reddit user captioned the photo, "OC: Trump looks on after a man fainted during an announcement in the Oval Office"
OC: Trump looks on after a man fainted during an announcement in the Oval Office
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The photo and claim about Trump's alleged inaction also circulated on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), X (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers wrote in to ask if the photo was authentic. One such message read, "Did Trump ignore man who fainted next to him in the Oval Office?"
The claims centered on a Nov. 6, 2025, news conference in the White House Oval Office where Trump, alongside administration officials and other participants, announced a deal to reduce the cost of some diabetes, weight-loss and migraine medications from the pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.
During this news conference, a participant reportedly fainted.
Though the photos and claims were real, it is not true that Trump "ignored" the man who fainted. Besides a photo by the reputable photo agency Getty Images' photographer Andrew Harnik, another photo credited to ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP, provided a different of the incident, one in which Trump appeared engaged.
Both an unlisted White House livestream and LiveNOW from FOX's livestream showed that Trump got up from his chair and appeared to show concern when the man fainted, though he remained standing off to the side as aides ushered media representatives out of the Oval Office. Mehmet Oz, Trump's appointed administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services and a trained physician, assisted the man who fainted.
According to an edited White House video showing the Nov. 6 news conference that omitted the moment the man fainted, Trump later told reporters:
One of the representatives of the companies — one of the companies — got a little bit lightheaded. You saw he went down and he's fine. They just sent him out. He's got doctor's care, but he's fine. Uh, so we had a little bit of an interruption, sorry for that.
According to the Hill, David Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly who was speaking when the man fainted, later confirmed that the person in question was a guest of Eli Lilly and was "doing great" after receiving treatment from White House medical staff.