Trump faces health questions ahead of another medical check
Dan Diamond
Washington: President Donald Trump is expected to undergo his third scheduled medical checkup in 13 months on Tuesday (US time), as outside physicians say they have persistent questions about the nearly 80-year-old president’s health and fitness.
Trump, the oldest president to ever be inaugurated, is scheduled to visit Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre for a medical and dental visit, the White House said earlier this month. The president went to Walter Reed in April 2025 for his annual physical exam – and returned in October for what officials characterised as a “scheduled follow-up,” sparking weeks of inquiries about Trump’s diagnosis and procedures that the White House repeatedly sidestepped.
Nearly three months after the visit, Trump and the White House clarified that the president had received a CT scan. His doctor, Sean Barbabella, described the imaging as preventive “to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues”.
While the White House has a round-the-clock medical team that can privately attend to the president if needed, Walter Reed has facilities for advanced imaging and other procedures. Trump also has made two visits to a Florida dentist since January, the White House has said, with officials saying those were for routine cleaning and care.
The White House has repeatedly said the president is in “excellent health,” including in response to questions this weekend, citing medical reports produced by White House physicians, including one from Barbabella in October that said Trump “remains in exceptional health”.
Trump’s health and fitness have been central to his political identity, in part because the president has continually invoked them, seeking to turn persistent doubts about his age into a point of strength. Trump campaigned in 2023 and 2024 by touting his vigour, particularly compared with then-president Joe Biden, regularly boasting of his results on cognitive exams while attacking his opponent as “Sleepy Joe”.
But as an ageing president, he now receives some of the same questions that dogged Biden – namely, whether he is mentally and physically fit to perform the duties of commander in chief. Independent doctors have asked why Trump’s hands have been repeatedly bruised, why his legs are swollen and whether his occasional sleepiness is a sign of a deeper issue, saying that they find White House explanations insufficient.
“This White House just doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge any physical ailment, but older people develop medical issues, and the president is almost 80 years old,” said Jonathan Reiner, a longtime cardiologist for former vice president Dick Cheney. “There just seems to be a lack of candour from the White House.”
A growing share of the public has doubts, too. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted last month found that 40 per cent of Americans thought Trump had the mental sharpness to serve as president, down from 47 per cent last September. Forty-four per cent of Americans thought Trump had the physical health to do the job, down from 54 per cent last September.
‘After a decade of delusion, deceit, denial or delay from the administrations and White House physicians regarding presidential evaluations, my expectation bar is pretty low.’
Jeffrey Kuhlman, former presidential physician
Presidents are not required to disclose their health records, although annual trips to Walter Reed have become a modern tradition. Some lawmakers in both parties have called for more checks on chief executives, such as establishing an independent commission to assess the president’s health.
In addition to boasting of his physical health, Trump has regularly touted his results on cognitive exams, insisting that the tests validate his fitness. He repeated claims about his cognitive scores as recently as a rally on Friday.
He has also invoked past diagnoses from his physicians, including congressman Ronny Jackson, who served as a White House physician during Trump’s first term. Trump has said Jackson told him he was healthier than Trump’s predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both of whom were at least 15 years younger than Trump when first sworn into office. The two former presidents also had consistent exercise routines, a contrast with Trump, who eschews exercise except for golf.
“I just care that he was my doctor and he said I’m the healthiest human being he’s ever – Ronny, am I healthier than these guys back here?” Trump said in February, standing in front of the US Naval Academy’s football team.
“Yes, sir,” Jackson replied.
“All right. See, this is why I like him,” Trump said.
His aides trumpet his energy, including this weekend, when they touted his commitment to working through Saturday.
Trump and some of his top deputies, such as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mehmet Oz, have made a recurring joke of the scrutiny of the president’s health.
“Dr Oz looked at his medical records and said he’s got the highest testosterone level that he’s ever seen for an individual over 70 years old,” Kennedy said on a podcast with former White House official Katie Miller this year. Officials later said he was repeating a private joke.
In a sign of how seriously the White House has treated the issue, press secretary Karoline Leavitt had personally handled questions about the president’s health before she took maternity leave this month. Trump also has spoken directly to some reporters who pursued stories about his fitness.
Confronting the rumours
The White House has become increasingly aggressive when rumours have spread about Trump’s health, which have sometimes corresponded with periods when the highly visible president abruptly lowered his public profile.
In early April, hundreds of thousands of social media users amplified claims that Trump had been taken to Walter Reed – drawing the ire of White House officials, who said that the president was instead sequestered to monitor search-and-rescue operations in Iran.
The White House subsequently created a digital “Wall of Shame” that criticised social media influencers who had fuelled claims about a hospital visit. The page also included reporters and news organisations that had merely noted facts about the situation, such as that Trump had yet to make a public appearance.
“The response was warranted because this was clearly an organised misinformation campaign peddled by left-wing accounts,” Leavitt told The Washington Post in a statement last month.
“Spreading false and slanderous misinformation about the President is dangerous, and the White House will always hold people accountable for their egregious lies.”
Trump has been a victim of misinformation, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, who has studied how misinformation spreads. The president has also contributed to it, she said.
“Conspiracy theories can be accurate,” Jamieson said, alluding to how Trump’s political career has been shaded by questions around his health – some of his own making. “It’s perfectly possible that unexplained absences are worthy of investigation.”
In interviews, several physicians who have treated presidents and other VIPs said they had come to distrust the White House’s process for releasing information about Trump, with some invoking the doubts around Biden, too.
“After a decade of delusion, deceit, denial or delay from the administrations and White House physicians regarding presidential evaluations, my expectation bar is pretty low,” said Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a physician to former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama.
“I hope they are at least transparent and truthful.”
In interviews with the Post, Kuhlman and other physicians listed several questions they’re focused on as Trump heads to his latest Walter Reed visit.
Mental fitness
Trump has touted his performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is used to screen for dementia or cognitive decline. The president has said he was prompted to undergo the assessment during his first administration because of persistent questions about his mental health.
“I don’t mind being called a brilliant, total tyrant dictator, but I don’t want to be called dumb,” he said at a rally on Friday. He added that “all presidents and vice-presidential candidates should be forced to take a cognitive test and a test on intelligence,” claiming that he would outperform Obama and Biden.
Democrats have repeatedly called for Trump to have an independent medical evaluation, citing his sometimes shocking statements, including his recent threat to end Iran’s “civilisation.” Some physicians say that, given the president’s age, more cognitive testing is warranted, too.
“In addition to a cognitive screening test, he may need further screening of his cognitive executive function, as we know 80-year-olds do have a decline in memory, reasoning, speed of processing and spatial visualisation,” said Kuhlman, who detailed his experiences treating presidents in a book called Transforming Presidential Healthcare.
Swollen legs
Reiner said that he had concerns about the president’s visibly swollen legs, which had become apparent by last summer. The White House last July said that Trump had developed chronic venous insufficiency, a mild but chronic illness related to his age – a rare admission of a presidential health issue.
Reiner noted that no mention of the condition was made in Trump’s April 2025 medical report. If the condition was present at the time, it raises questions about whether physicians missed or failed to disclose the diagnosis, he said.
Alternatively, if Trump developed swollen legs in the weeks after the April exam, that would indicate a condition called acute edema – and “that usually warrants an in-depth evaluation to make sure that you don’t have conditions like congestive heart failure”, Reiner said.
The president’s October medical report said nothing about the condition.
Bruised hands
The White House has said that recurring bruises on Trump’s hands are not a sign of a more serious medical condition, chalking it up to his daily use of aspirin and frequent hand-shaking.
Reiner said he found those explanations not credible.
“If you’re taking too much aspirin, one would likely take less aspirin. So that explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Reiner said. “We’ve seen a similar bruise from time to time on his left hand, and I doubt he’s shaking hands with his left hand,” he added.
Age-related accommodations
Biden officials made changes to his routine as he approached his 80th birthday, such as scheduling events for the middle of the day rather than in the evening and using shorter stairs to access Air Force One.
Asked this weekend about whether the White House had made any adjustments given Trump’s age, officials said that no accommodations had been necessary.
Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and MS NOW medical analyst, said that both presidents had demonstrated markers of healthy ageing, citing Biden’s weekend biking trips, Trump’s regular golf outings and both men’s travel schedules. But he said it was important to consider the scope of their jobs, too.
“The more important question is not whether they are ageing normally, but whether they retain the sustained executive functioning, cognitive stamina and adaptive decision-making required for the presidency,” said Gupta, who had discussed joining the Biden administration in a senior health role.
“Those are different standards, and in my view, both men have shown enough public evidence of decline in those domains to raise legitimate concerns about fitness for office.”
Frequency of visits
Trump’s second physical exam at Walter Reed last year had little modern precedent, with presidents usually making just one annual trip unless they have an urgent condition. Nearly three months after the visit, and after initially telling reporters that he had undergone an MRI exam, Trump and the White House clarified that the president had received a CT scan as part of his assessment.
Physicians have asked whether the White House is concealing other essential findings, such as whether Trump has privately visited the hospital.
“He has never made an undisclosed visit to Walter Reed,” Leavitt told The Post last month.
