The official White House narrative on the president’s Friday trip to a medical clinic has left MSNBC host Chris Hayes doing a double-take.
“Here’s the thing: Donald Trump already had his annual check-up. It was in April,” the network mainstay pointed out, pulling up a statement from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier this week in which she’d claimed Trump would “visit Walter Reed Medical Centre for a planned meeting and remarks with the troops,” and that “while there, President Trump will stop by for his routine yearly check up.”
Routine annual physical exams, by virtue of their name, are performed just once a year. Speaking with reporters at the Oval Office Thursday, Trump reframed his visit as a “semi-annual physical, which I do,” and added “I think I’m in great shape, but I’ll let you know.”
A White House update on Trump’s health exam released on Friday outlines that he “continues to demonstrate excellent overall health,” and that “his cardiac age” was found to be “approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age.” His April physical, meanwhile, found he was “fully fit to serve” with a height of 6’2” and a weight of 224 pounds, which as Hayes pointed out stands at roughly the same as Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Hayes went on to note the 79-year-old president’s claims of being in effectively the same shape as a 30-year-old NFL star would suggest his time in office is having the opposite effect it had on his predecessors Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama, who appeared visibly aged after eight years behind the Resolute Desk.
Reflecting on that possibility, the MSNBC host was unconvinced. “Nine months in, I gotta say, that guy doesn’t look great,” Hayes said Friday. “He’s got a recurring bruise on his hand [which] he’s constantly trying to cover [with] makeup, he’s got severely swollen ankles, which the White House attributes to a very common condition among senior citizens.”
The bruising on Trump’s hands, which MAGA aides chalk up to his use of aspirin to mitigate the risk of heart disease, and his swollen ankles, which White House physicians say are a result of chronic venous disorder common in people of his age, has proven a subject of intense speculation over the past several months.
Earlier in August, a four-day disappearance from public view even prompted online rumors the almost-octogenarian leader had actually died.
“But it’s more than that,” Hayes said of Trump’s apparent physical ailments. “Mentally, the guy seems off. He’s constantly drifting off during meetings, unable to properly understand questions from reporters, rambling even more than he did during his first term.”
Critics have noted the president, who routinely attacked President Joe Biden for outward signs of cognitive decline on last year’s campaign trail, has seemed increasingly confused during public appearances since assuming office for the second time in January.
Recent gaffes have included repeatedly claiming to have brokered peace between Albania and Azerbaijan, two countries almost 2,000 miles apart that have never been at war, and posting AI-generated content of himself singing the praises of “med-beds,” a non-existent cure for all physical ailments long rumored among conspiracy theorists.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on this story.
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