Donald Trump won’t release even basic medical details about himself ahead of next month’s presidential election, leaving the public to wonder if he’s hiding anything.
Trump promised last month that he would “very gladly” release his medical records, noting that he recently had a medical exam. But when The New York Times asked him for a copy recently, a Trump spokesperson referred them to a one-page letter that his former physician sent to Congress in July, a week after his assassination attempt.
The letter only describes a bullet wound to Trump’s ear and its healing progress, and the spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions from the Times. It seems to fit a long-standing pattern from the former president, who also refused to release his medical records before the 2016 presidential election. At the time, he released a short letter from his personal doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, wildly claiming that Trump would be “the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency.”
Three years later, Bornstein would come out and say that Trump not only personally dictated the letter but also claimed that Trump’s ex-bodyguard raided his office and removed Trump’s medical records. This was followed by years of secrecy from Trump about his health.
In 2020, when Trump was diagnosed with Covid and was hospitalized, his doctors didn’t provide the public with many details about his condition, which was more serious than what was being disclosed. And even after the attempt on his life this July, Trump’s campaign didn’t hold a briefing on his health, make his doctors available to the press, or release his hospital records.
Since President Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is now the oldest candidate in the race, at 78, and if reelected, would be 82 years old by the time his term ends, the oldest president in U.S. history. Biden’s decision to leave the race was in part due to questions about his age and cognitive health, and there’s no shortage of concern regarding Trump’s mental state.
The few details that came out about Trump’s health were during his presidency, showing high cholesterol and obesity. He also bragged about acing a dementia test, though he got all the details of the test wrong in his recollection. Maybe that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and Trump has some worse details that he doesn’t want the public to know.
The less Trump discloses to the public, though, the more speculation takes place. If the former president doesn’t have anything to hide and his health is as excellent as he claims, he should embrace transparency and release detailed records, especially since he’s vying for the most powerful job in the world.
