An insider who was in the Oval Office when a man collapsed during President Donald Trump’s announcement on lowering the cost of weight loss drugs is revealing what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did amid the commotion.
Clips from the Thursday, Nov. 6 press conference quickly spread online, showing the Health and Human Services Secretary appearing to leave the room as others rushed to assist the man. Some social media users criticized Kennedy for seeming to “flee the scene” while Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, helped catch the man as he fell.
With help from others in the room, Oz laid the man down as Kennedy walked toward another area and someone nearby mentioned getting a chair.
A source who attended the conference said that “three doctors” were already assisting the man when the incident occurred as Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks was speaking. According to the source, Kennedy “went into the other room and got a chair because when [the man] first started falling, he thought maybe he just needed to sit.”
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The insider added, “He went back and got a wet towel and came over when [the man] was on the floor. When they were first propping him up, Kennedy ran in the other room and got a chair for him.”
White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai defended Kennedy on X, responding to a post that accused him of walking away:
“The Secretary rushed to get medical assistance while others tended to the man, you ghoul,” Desai wrote.
The source said the man who fainted appeared to be in “pretty bad shape.” Though “conscious” and with a normal heart rate, “his blood pressure was in the tank.”
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“He tried to sit up for a while but he was definitely pale,” the source continued. “They laid him down again and then they took him out on a gurney.”
After the incident, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the man was doing “okay” and that the event would continue. When the press conference resumed, Trump addressed the interruption:
“One of the representatives of one of the companies got a little light-headed and so they went down, and he’s fine,” the president said. “He’s got doctor’s care, but he’s fine. So we had a little bit of an interruption. Sorry for that.”
Although initial reports identified the man as Gordon Findlay, global brand director for Novo Nordisk, the company later clarified that Findlay was not present at the event.
