President Donald Trump, his White House, and their allies are pushing back against speculation about Trump’s health as he tries to portray his strength as a leader rather than a lame-duck commander in chief.
Trump surprised the Wall Street Journal this week when he personally responded to the news outlet’s request for comment regarding a story questioning the president’s health before his 80th birthday this June, underscoring the sensitivity of the issue for the country’s oldest commander in chief as of his inauguration day.
Trump’s response comes after a more strident reaction to a New York Times article last November alleging the president is demonstrating “signs of fatigue” as he “faces realities of aging in office.”
“The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out,” Trump wrote on social media at the time.
More than a month later, Trump understands the political problems related to his health and age “because he played a role in how it impacted [former President Joe] Biden’s presidency” and his doomed 2024 reelection campaign, according to Republican strategist Doug Heye.
“But it’s a story you can never get fully in front of — like Biden, Trump is at an age where you age faster and in a job that wears on your age and stamina constantly,” the former Republican National Committee communications director told the Washington Examiner. “And any slip will be seen by voters over and over again.”
To that end, Democratic strategist Garry South contended Trump is “a sick old man, every bit of evidence we can see with our own eyes proves it — falling asleep in meetings, the halting gait, the make-up on his hands, the hugely swollen ankles, not to mention buying aspirin in wholesale lots.”
There is no proof, however, that Trump has been asleep during meetings, only photographs or screenshots capturing him with his eyes closed, although the president admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he finds closing his eyes to be “very relaxing.”
South told the Washington Examiner, “Far from Democrats wringing their hands over the prospect of Trump trying to run for a third term, Republicans should be worried about whether he’ll even live through his second term.”
During his impromptu telephone call with the Wall Street Journal, Trump corrected the record after he told reporters last October he received an MRI during a trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center when it was a cardiovascular and abdominal CT scan.
“In retrospect, it’s too bad I took it because it gave them a little ammunition,” Trump told the news outlet. “I would have been a lot better off if they didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”
Trump also told the Wall Street Journal that he takes more than his doctor’s recommended daily dose of aspirin.
“I’m a little superstitious,” he said. “They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart … I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized Trump’s transparency with respect to his health after a lack thereof from Biden, despite the president’s obfuscation in the past, including during his 2016 campaign when his then-personal physician, the late Dr. Harold Bornstein, an internist and gastroenterologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, pronounced that he “would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
“Additional details on the imaging have been disclosed by the president himself, because he continues to be the most transparent and open president in history and has nothing to hide, unlike his predecessor Joe Biden, who hid from the press and lied about his clear physical and mental decline,” Leavitt told reporters this week.
At the same time, Trump’s decision to submit to a second annual physical examination last October stoked concerns about the president’s health, with a dearth of information provided by the White House.
Leavitt in February did tell reporters Trump’s bruised hand is the result of excessive hand-shaking before adding in July that he is experiencing chronic venous insufficiency, causing his swollen ankles.
“President Trump agreed to meet with the staff and soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Hospital in October,” Trump’s doctor, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, said this week. “In order to make the most of the president’s time at the hospital, we recommended he undergo another routine physical evaluation to ensure continued optimal health.”
Barbabella added, “As part of that examination, we asked the president if he would undergo advanced imaging — either an MRI or CT Scan — to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues. The president agreed, and our team of consultants performed a CT Scan. As we revealed in the post-examination report, the advanced imaging was perfectly normal and revealed absolutely no abnormalities.”
Simultaneously, Trump’s hands were again a hot topic on the internet this week after both hands were spotted sporting bruises.
In the Wall Street Journal interview, Trump attributed his high aspirin dosage as the reason behind the bruises.
In Trump’s defense, particularly after the New York Times reported last year that the president’s public schedule is lighter and starting later during his second administration compared to his first, Republican strategist John Feehery argued nobody “can accuse [him] of not having enough energy or moxie to do the job.”
“This health thing is a media-created fixation because they would rather focus on that than focus on all of Trump’s policy successes,” Feehery told the Washington Examiner.
More broadly, Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley remained adamant that the 2026 midterm elections “[are] not going to turn on Trump’s health.”
“The champagne socialists must really be desperate,” Shirley told the Washington Examiner. “The real story instead is the Democrat Party is dying before our eyes.”
Democratic strategist Christopher Hahn, nevertheless, conceded, “It’s absurd to think he’s as fit as the job requires, but politically it’s not too relevant since he can’t run for another term.”
“His health will only become a real issue if he can’t show up to work,” Hahn told the Washington Examiner.
Claremont McKenna College politics professor John Pitney concluded that Trump’s quips about “Sleepy Joe” Biden have encouraged “scrutiny of his own physical condition.”
“The questions won’t go away because one thing is certain: he won’t get any younger,” Pitney told the Washington Examiner.
WHAT CAN TRUMP DO TO CHANGE THE TIDE BEFORE THE 2026 MIDTERM ELECTIONS?
Amid the health-focused news cycle, Trump on Friday proudly shared his cognitive test results, repeating that his doctors report that he is “in ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ and that [he] ‘ACED’” a third examination, “something which no other President, or previous Vice President, was willing to take.”
“P.S., I strongly believe that anyone running for President, or Vice President, should be mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven Cognitive Examination,” he wrote on social media. “Our great Country cannot be run by ‘STUPID’ or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE!”
