A top doctor to three U.S. presidents is calling BS on the MAGA administration’s claims that 79-year-old Donald Trump is still in the prime of his life.
Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a White House physician under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, sat down with The Hill Sunday to discuss the MAGA leader’s recent trip to the Walter Reed Military Medical Center.
Last month, Trump visited the clinic for what his administration bizarrely billed as his second “annual” physical exam so far this year.
Beyond a physician’s note describing the president’s “excellent overall health,” his aides remained tight-lipped on the reason for his trip until Trump himself blurted to reporters he’d undergone an MRI scan, the results of which he described as “perfect.”
Kuhlman questioned that assessment, arguing that because any other tests beyond an MRI could have been performed in just 15 minutes back at the White House, the official timeline of Trump’s visit to the military clinic simply doesn’t add up.
“It’s about an eight-minute helicopter ride from the South Lawn to Walter Reed. So we know that he at least had four hours available to undergo medical care,” he told The Hill. “There’s a disconnect there.”
Trump’s visit to Walter Reed has further fueled already rampant speculation about the aging president’s physical and mental health. Political commentators, medical professionals and the general public have frequently pointed to his slurred speech, erratic public appearances, and occasional unsteady gait as possible signs of a body and mind in crisis.
So far, White House doctors have chalked the president’s swollen cankles up to chronic venous insufficiency, an ailment common in men of his age where the veins have trouble returning blood to the heart. The physicians also explained away the frequent bruising on his hands as a side effect of his use of aspirin to guard against potential heart troubles.
MAGA officials have been less eager to discuss Trump’s increasingly common mental flubs and gaffes. Over the past few weeks alone, this has included getting confused while explaining water to the Navy, his inability to pronounce the word “acetaminophen,” and claims to have brokered peace between Albania and Azerbaijan—two countries a thousand miles apart that have never been at war.
Medical experts have questioned the wisdom of Trump disclosing the test he received when he visited Walter Reed last month, if then his administration only withholds any further information about what the purpose of that test may have been.
“I think if you’re going to release some information, you want to release enough information that the public at least can put it into context,” Jacob Appel, a professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai, told The Hill. “If you’re going to say that you’re having an MRI, we should know what the MRI is for.”
“We don’t know what the MRI was for, because the president hasn’t even told us what body part was [scanned],” he went on. “An MRI could be something to check for a cognitive issue. It could be something to check for a heart issue. It could be the president twisted an ankle and they’re afraid that he has a bone fracture. So it could be almost anything.”
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