Dr. Jonathan Reiner thinks there’s something fishy about President Donald Trump’s medical testing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that the president had a “preventative MRI” last month to examine his heart and abdomen.
“There really is no preventative cardiac MRI,” Reiner said during Monday’s episode of CNN News Central. “This is not a standard test for an 80-year-old man to undergo advanced imaging.”
The White House had spent weeks refusing to directly address the reasoning behind the president’s advanced imaging during an October visit to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, which gave many pause as to the true state of Trump’s health.
Trump, 79, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he would be OK with releasing information related to his “perfect” MRI.
Reiner, a medical analyst for CNN who served as the late former Vice President Dick Cheney’s cardiologist for over 30 years, said the lack of transparency regarding the president’s clandestine medical procedures has a “weird, defensive, evasive tone to it.”
“If you look at his first administration, the president, like most presidents, only underwent one comprehensive physical exam every year, so this comes completely off-cycle,” Reiner said. “Dr. Barbabella, the president’s physician, states that he underwent advanced imaging. Well, what specific advanced imaging did the president have?”
“Was it an MRI, as the president said? Was it a CT? Did he have both? Why not just spell it out?” Reiner continued. “It’s as if a patient came in for a chest X-ray, and then I only told people that the patient underwent simple radiologic imaging.”
The medical analyst pointed out that “preventative” imaging of the abdomen was especially peculiar.
“This obviously was performed in response to some clinical concern, which is fine. Things happen to people as we all get older, and the president is almost 80,” Reiner said. “So, instead of this kind of evasive, almost laughable kind of note, just spell out what happened.
“I hope the imaging is normal and great; that would be excellent news,” he added. “But this kind of piece-by-piece, drip-by-drip release of information is just concerning.”
Reiner went on to describe chronic venous insufficiency, a generally “benign” condition Trump was diagnosed with in July. However, he noted that the swelling of the legs caused by the condition could actually have broader cardiovascular implications.
“Yes, you can use MRI to image the heart, to look for a thickening or stiffness, or infiltrative diseases of the heart. So if his team was doing it for that reason, well, that’s important to know,” he said. “And that’s a more significant issue than simple preventative imaging. But again, it just doesn’t seem to fit with reality.”
“I think most physicians would basically agree that advanced imaging is not a routine part of an executive physical for a man or a woman of any age,” Reiner added.
Calling back to Trump’s earlier medical examination in April, Reiner noted that they reported that the president showed no evidence of swelling. Yet, in July, they confirmed his diagnosis of having chronic venous insufficiency.
Reiner said, “It’s hard to call something chronic when it happens acutely.”
Despite his skepticism, Reiner said that the reasoning behind the president’s “lack of candor” over his health is “probably not so nefarious.”
“It’s just best to have the president’s doctor come out, answer a few questions and put the whole mystery to bed, and then we can all move on,” Reiner concluded.
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