Donald Trump has had quite a few medical visits since returning to the White House. The president had an annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in mid-April last year, for example, followed by a “semiannual physical” in early October.
In early January, Trump had what was described as a brief dentist appointment in Florida. In early May, he had another dentist appointment. Early last week, ahead of his 80th birthday, the oldest American president ever elected returned to Walter Reed for his third “annual” physical in 13 months.
After the appointment, Trump gave himself a clean bill of health and vowed to provide news organizations with a summary in “the next day or so.” That was on Tuesday. It wasn’t until Friday night — a time when the White House tends to release information it hopes the public will overlook — when there was some disclosure. MS NOW reported:
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President Donald Trump’s physician declared him in “excellent health,” but recommended the president lose weight and exercise more following his latest physical exam. “Cognitive and physical performance are excellent,” Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella wrote in his report released on Friday. “He is fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State.”
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At first blush, that might seem like a routine summary, but a closer look suggests three lingering problems with the developments.
What was in the report: The three-page report released by the White House included plenty of anodyne details, but it also added some curious elements. Barbabella, for example, stated that Trump has a “cardiac age” of a 65-year-old, based on the results of an “AI-enhanced electrocardiogram analysis.” It also pointed to “frequent handshaking” to explain the bruising that often appears on the president’s left and right hands.
Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for MS NOW, noted online, “When a President’s physicians start citing ‘AI cardiac age’ metrics and explaining bilateral bruising from ‘frequent handshaking,’ the line between medical documentation and political messaging disappears.”
What’s more, the same report from the White House noted that Trump also took another cognitive exam, the fourth of his presidency.
The Republican claimed via social media that the results showed his “extreme intelligence.” That wasn’t even close to being true. As The New York Times reported, the exam is “meant to screen for signs of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other conditions.” It is not, in other words, an intelligence test; it is simply designed to assess degenerative ailments. (If the president is going to make frequent reference to these exams, someone of his intelligence probably ought to learn what they are.)
As for why exactly Trump has taken four cognitive tests over the course of his presidency, no one at the White House has yet offered an explanation.
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What was not in the report: That the documentation released by the White House spanned three pages might give the impression of comprehensiveness, but that’s not quite right. The Wall Street Journal reported, for example, “The White House memorandum describing President Trump’s recent physical examination lacks details of the results of tests to assess his cardiovascular health, according to physicians who read the report. That is one of several areas of the report that doctors said stood out for its lack of specificity.”
Steve Benen Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.” Latest Post
