After weeks of intense focus on President Biden\u2019s health and age that ended with his withdrawal from the campaign on Sunday, the script has flipped: Former president Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in history \u2014 and one who has been less transparent about his medical condition than his former opponent.<\/p>\n
Trump, a 78-year-old with a history of heart disease and obesity, according to experts, has not shared any updated bloodwork results or other specific information during this campaign to help experts assess his ongoing medical risks.<\/p>\n
Instead, he has released a vague, three-paragraph letter from his primary care physician, Bruce A. Aronwald, who wrote in November that the former president was in excellent physical and mental health, and who later said in a statement released by campaign officials to The Washington Post that \u201cthere is no need for President Trump to release another medical report in addition to the one he recently made public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seven days after the attempted assassination against him on July 13, Trump released a letter from his former White House physician, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), who described treating a two-centimeter-wide wound to Trump\u2019s right ear and said he had a CT scan of his head and other tests but did not release the results. Jackson said in the letter that Trump was initially treated by the medical staff at Butler Memorial Hospital in Butler, Pa., and that he saw the former president later that night at Trump\u2019s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. Jackson, who is one of Trump\u2019s most loyal supporters, did not respond to a request for comment. A hospital spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n
Jackson has previously said that Trump aced a cognitive test when he was president, but those results also have not been released.<\/p>\n
Now, instead of facing an 81-year-old candidate whose mental and physical health were questioned after a disastrous debate in June, Trump\u2019s opponent is most likely to be Vice President Harris, a 59-year-old with no publicly disclosed health issues. Harris has not released a detailed medical report as vice president. The White House and her campaign did not immediately respond to questions from The Post about whether she would do so as a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
The age of presidential candidates has been a key issue for voters this year. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, conducted before last week\u2019s Republican convention, found that 60 percent of Americans said Trump is too old for another term as president, including 82 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents and 29 percent of Republicans. Before Biden dropped out of the race, many Democrats bristled at what they argued was an unfair critical focus on his age compared to Trump. <\/p>\n
A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
There is no requirement for presidential candidates to release medical records, and they would have to agree to waive privacy laws to enable a physician to do so. But medical experts said that given Trump\u2019s age and the previous emphasis on health in the race, voters would benefit if everyone in the race were transparent with their doctors\u2019 findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would take away the fear that someone has an issue that is not being disclosed because they know if might affect their candidacy,\u201d Ira Monka, president of the American Osteopathic Association, said in an interview before Biden\u2019s withdrawal, referring to both him and Trump. \u201cThis is the highest office in the world so we want to have complete openness as much as possible. If the candidates would agree on that, I think the public would be very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has a mixed history of releasing medical information. In 2015, during his first run for the White House, he said he instructed his doctor, Harold Bornstein, to release \u201ca full medical report\u201d and promised \u201cit will show perfection.\u201d Bornstein did not release Trump\u2019s records, but instead issued a four-paragraph letter that said Trump would be \u201cthe healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.\u201d Bornstein, who died in 2021, later told CNN that Trump \u201cdictated that whole letter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In September 2016, Trump released another letter from Bornstein that included more information and concluded that Trump was \u201cin excellent physical health.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most detailed releases about Trump\u2019s health came during his presidency in 2018, when Jackson appeared at the White House press room podium and provided details that included a CT scan showing Trump\u2019s coronary calcium score was 133, up from 34 in 2009. At the time, CNN\u2019s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, and other experts said the score indicated that Trump had heart disease.<\/p>\n
The letter also said Trump weighed 239 pounds, making him borderline obese. The following two years, Trump\u2019s doctors revealed that his weight had increased to 243 and then 244 pounds, making him obese under government standards.<\/p>\n
But no such details have been released since Trump left the White House. After losing his reelection bid, Trump has relied on Aronwald, a doctor of osteopathic medicine who is a member of Trump\u2019s Bedminster golf course and runs a private \u201cconcierge\u201d practice that caters to high-income patients. Aronwald declined to speak to a Post reporter who in April visited his office in Morristown, N.J. He has never spoken publicly about Trump\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n
The letter Aronwald released on Nov. 20 did not include specific results such as blood pressure or weight. Nor did it disclose Trump\u2019s medications. Instead, it was filled with superlatives, saying Trump was in \u201cexcellent health\u201d and had \u201cexceptional\u201d cognitive ability. It said without providing any numbers that Trump had \u201creduced his weight.\u201d It said his cardiovascular studies were normal.<\/p>\n
Trump has said he twice \u201caced\u201d cognitive tests, but he has not released them and has not said if he has taken one since 2018. Ziad Nasreddine, the neurologist who created the test, told The Post earlier this year that a six-year-old test would be too outdated to be relevant. He said that a candidate who is Trump\u2019s age should take regular cognitive tests and publicly release the results.<\/p>\n
Some experts previously told The Post that Trump could face an elevated genetic risk of dementia. Trump has said that his father was \u201caddled with Alzheimer\u2019s,\u201d which specialists said could increase Trump\u2019s chances of inheriting the gene that can cause the disease. When Trump turned 50, he told Playboy magazine that watching his father face cognitive problems had a profound effect on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurning 50 does make you think about mortality, or immortality, or whatever,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Scott Clement contributed to this report. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After weeks of intense focus on President Biden\u2019s health and age that ended with his withdrawal from the campaign on Sunday, the script has flipped: Former president Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in history \u2014 and one who has been less transparent about his medical condition than his former opponent. Trump, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}