Featured Image Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Parenting, Health
Greg Harris
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Parenting, Health
A toddler completely stole the show during Donald Trump’s latest announcement in the Oval Office, by laying on the floor.
The president was in the middle of delivering a speech when two-year-old Travis Smith seemingly reached his limit of patience and made a dramatic exit from proceedings… straight down onto the carpet.
Dressed sharply in a miniature suit not unlike the officials surrounding him, Travis blended right in with the adults in the room, until he very much didn’t. What followed was a full toddler takeover: tumbling, wriggling, and rolling across the floor while officials looked on with amused smiles rather than alarm.
The White House has since embraced the unexpected moment, turning the moment into a viral meme. A photo of Travis lying face-down on the Oval Office carpet was posted with the caption: “ALMOST FRIDAY”.
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Unsurprisingly, the internet had questions, starting with the most obvious: why was a toddler even there?
The answer lay in the purpose of the gathering. The US president had invited Travis, his mother, and health officials to highlight a 'miracle' drug credited with restoring the child’s hearing.
“That’s really incredible,” Trump said of the cure, adding: “He was 100 per cent deaf, but he took this miracle cure and now he can hear his mum Sierra say ‘I love you.’”
But for social media users stumbling across the now-viral White House post, context was missing, leading to widespread confusion.
“So whose baby is that sleeping on the floor in the white house?” one person asked.
Another person asked: “Who is this baby? Why the baby is sleeping here anyone?”
Someone else wrote: “I totally loved the 2 year old being a 2 year old on the Oval Office floor…so funny..”
The event itself was part of a broader healthcare affordability push held in the Oval Office, with Travis and his mother invited as a living example of the medical breakthrough being discussed.
The announcement coincided with the US Food and Drug Administration approving Regeneron’s gene therapy for a rare genetic form of deafness, the company confirmed on Thursday.
It marks the first introduction of gene therapy for genetic hearing loss on the market.
The treatment targets otoferlin-related hearing loss, caused by variants in the OTOF gene, which affects around 20–50 newborns in the U.S. each year. Otoferlin is a vital protein in the inner ear’s hair cells, responsible for transmitting sound signals to the brain.
Travis was born six weeks early and diagnosed with the OTOF mutation, Reuters reports. He received Regeneron’s experimental therapy at 18 months old as part of a clinical trial.
"Watching him be able to interact with other children and even him knowing his name now and turning when I say his name is the craziest thing," said his mother, Sierra.
"I can tell him how much I love him - it's such a different world."