The Washington Post took a look at what we know about the state of Trump’s health:
As former president Donald Trump escalated his attacks on President Biden’s health and mental fitness last fall, Trump released the first updated report on his own condition in more than three years.
This assessment, however, stood in stark contrast to the relatively detailed reports released by the White House during his term. Instead of specifics like blood pressure and medications, the letter had just three paragraphswithout specific numbers proclaiming that Trump was in “excellent health” and had “exceptional” cognitive ability. It did not disclose Trump’s weight.
And after relying on a longtime personal doctor and then twoWhite House physicians who had attested to his well-being in office, Trump turned to an unknown on the national stage to providethis report: Bruce A. Aronwald, a 64-year-old osteopathic physician from New Jersey — and a longtime member of Trump’s Bedminster golf club.
The concierge doctor and fixture at Bedminster declined to be interviewed and said there’s no reason to release any more details of the 78 year old candidate’s health because he is strong physically and sharp cognitively. So that’s that apparently, which only leads to more speculation about what’s going on with him (because something is…)
Biden has released a much more comprehensive report on his health with all the details about his medications, physical impairments like sleep apnea and “stiff gait” giving a fuller picture of the 81 year old.
They’re both old and both appear to be physically healthy. Trump, for some reason, is the only one who refuses to have a real physical and release the details. You have to wonder why. But then remember the history:
Trump has long relied on personal physicians and White House doctors to respond to — and sometimes insulate him from — questions about his health.
In 2015, h etweeted that “as a presidential candidate, I have instructed my longtime doctor to issue, within two weeks, a full medical report — it will show perfection.”
A full medical report was not immediately forthcoming. Instead, the following day,Trump’s then-physician, Harold Bornstein, signed a four-paragraph letter that said Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” It provided only a few metrics such as blood pressure and a PSA test for prostate screening.
Bornstein, a gastroenterologist who died in 2021, later told CNN that Trump “dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter. I just made it up as I went along.”
As the 2016 campaign developed, Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, released a detailed medical report and challenged Trump to do the same.
After pressure mounted on Trump to release more information, Bornstein conducted another examination and, in September 2016, Trump went on “The Dr. Oz Show” and, with a dramatic flourish, pulled out a new report for Oz to read. That letter included more information about blood tests and other metrics than the first letter, and said Trump was in “excellent physical health.”
In early 2017, Bornstein told the New York Times that Trump took drugs for hair loss, rosacea and high cholesterol. As a result of that revelation, he said he was told he was no longer under consideration to be White House physician. And two days after that article was published, Bornstein later told NBC News, a White House official and two others conducted a “raid” on his office to obtain the president’s medical records, which he said made him feel “raped, frightened and sad.” The White House responded at the time that it was “standard operating procedure” to obtain the documents and denied that it was a raid.
Then there was Dr Feelgood Jackson, recently revealed to have been dispensing massive amounts of narcotics during the Trump administration:
During his presidency, Trump’s first White House physician, Ronny Jackson, appeared in the White House briefing room in 2018 to announce that tests performed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center found Trump to be in excellent health.
The results were detailed, showing that Trump’s weight had increased from 236 to 239 pounds, which qualified him as borderline obese for a man of 6-3. Jackson also said that Trump had scored a 30 out of 30 on a basic cognitive test designed to detect early signs of cognitive impairment.Jackson said nothing was being withheld from the tests, and he said that Trump’s release was more than any president before him had done. Jackson recommended that Trump try to lose 10 to 15 pounds.
But somephysicians and analysts at the time said the report also showed Trump had an increased risk of heart problems — underscoring why releasing detailed results can provide important information beyond a general statement. CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, noted that a CT scan showed that Trump’s coronary calcium score was 133, up from 98 in 2013 and 34 in 2009. Gupta wrote that a score over 100 “indicates plaque is present and that the patient has heart disease,” and also noted Trump had increased cholesterol levels. Jackson said in releasing the report that he had increased Trump’s cholesterol-lowering medication, in addition to his recommendations about diet. (No numbers about cholesterol or calcium were released in the latest report.)
Jackson, who is now a GOP congressmanrepresenting Texas, has been an outspoken supporter of Trump and critic of Biden’s health. The Navy in 2022 demoted him from retired rear admiral to retired captain after a Pentagon’s inspector general’s report that substantiated allegations about his inappropriate behavior as White House physician, The Post recently reported.
And when Trump caught COVID because he refused to cancel appearances or wear a mask:
[Jackson’s successor Dr. Sean] Conley supported Trump’s usage of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, during the coronavirus pandemic. Conley wrote a May 18, 2020, memo in which he said he had discussed the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine and “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
Then, after Trump contracted covid-19 in the fall of 2020, Conley made statements that played down the severity of Trump’s illness that were later contradicted by other White House officials and subsequent reporting. While Conley wrote in a memo that Trump was recovering and had “no symptoms,” then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters that Trump was doing worse than Conley had let on. Conley later said that “it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. … The fact of the matter is that he’s doing really well.”
This latest exam by the concierge doctor was held in September, 2023.
I think Trump is probably physically fine. He seems to have a robust constitution. But he is not mentally well and it’s obvious. I doubt that the concierge doctor is very qualified to make an accurate assessment of that. But it’s really not necessary. There’s something wrong with him. He’s always rambled and said stupid things. But now he’s exhibiting some behavior that is just plain weird. Doctors who have seen it think it may have been a TIA.