As President Joe Biden marked his 81st birthday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump released a letter from the former president’s doctor stating that the former is in “excellent” physical and mental health, the AP reports.
The letter, which was shared on Trump’s social media accounts, lacked any supporting information, including measurements of weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, or the outcomes of any tests. New Jersey doctor Bruce A. Aronwald claims to have been Trump’s physician since 2021. He last saw the president in September, and according to the doctor, Trump’s “physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional.”
He continued by saying that Trump’s recent weight loss, which he attributed to “improved diet and continued daily physical exercise, while maintaining a rigorous schedule,” was the reason his most recent lab results were “even more favorable than prior testing on some of the most significant parameters.”
After completing his assessment, the physician declared that the 77-year-old was “currently in excellent health” and “will continue to enjoy a healthy active lifestyle for years to come.”
The report is released at a time when age is expected to play a significant role in the 2024 presidential election, which may pit Trump against Joe Biden, the nation’s oldest president, once more.
Even though Trump and Biden aren’t that different in age, polls consistently show that Americans see the president’s age as more of a liability.
77% of American adults, including 69% of Democrats, believed that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to an August poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In contrast, only 51% of adults, including just 28% of Republicans, felt the same way about Trump.
Nevertheless, Trump’s opponents have attempted to draw attention to his advanced age by highlighting some of his recent mistakes, such as confusing the state and city in which he was running for office.
One of Trump’s opponents, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, described himself as a man “in the prime of my life” and said on CNN Sunday that “the presidency is not a job for somebody that is pushing 80 years old.”
Doctors’ attestations to Trump’s strictness have given rise to a distinct genre.
Trump’s campaign released a letter from the late Dr. Harold N. Bornstein in late December 2015, during his first campaign for the Republican nomination. In it, Bornstein claimed that Trump, who was known for his love of fast food and his dislike of physical activity, would “unequivocally” be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Later, Bornstein disclosed that Trump had written the glowing review himself, referring to it as “black humor” and acknowledging that he had written it in five minutes while the then-candidate’s limo was waiting outside his office.
2018: “I just made it up as I went along,” he said to CNN. It reminds me of the film ‘Fargo.'” It moves the truth by taking it.
After yearly physicals with numbers and test results, Trump’s doctors provided a more comprehensive health picture while he was in the White House.
For example, his 2018 exam found he had a common form of heart disease, but his 2019 physical revealed he was officially classified as obese.
Nevertheless, during a long press conference regarding the exam, then-White House Dr. Ronny Jackson gave a positive report, praising Trump’s “incredible genes” and joking that “he might live to be 200 years old” if the 71-year-old president had followed a healthier diet over the preceding 20 years.
In addition, Jackson said that Trump had done “exceedingly well” on an unexpected cognitive screening exam intended to identify mild cognitive impairment and early indications of memory loss. Even now, Trump still boasts about the outcomes.
