Doctors are voicing skepticism over the White House’s handling of Donald Trump’s troubling new skin condition.
After photographers captured a nasty-looking rash on the side of the president’s neck at the White House on Monday, White House physician Sean Patrick Barbabella issued a statement to media outlets, including the Daily Beast, that reads: “President Trump is using a very common cream on the right side of his neck, which is a preventative skin treatment, prescribed by the White House Doctor. The President is using this treatment for one week, and the redness is expected to last for a few weeks.”
But some in the medical field remain unconvinced. Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for MS NOW and former Chief Medical Officer at Amazon, theorized the rash could in fact be “pre-cancerous.”
“The White House medical team didn’t know [Trump] got a CT scan. They claimed it was a MRI for weeks,” Gupta wrote, referencing an apparent “MRI” that Trump let slip he had in October 2025—an examination the White House originally kept under wraps.
“Now instead of acknowledging he might have a pre-cancerous skin condition, they dance around the issue,” Gupta continued. “Trying to fool the public just makes it worse.”
Gupta wasn’t the only physician with something to say about Trump’s irritated, bright-red skin. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, cardiologist to the late former Vice President Dick Cheney, also raised concerns about the White House’s statement—including a theory that it might not have been written by the physician himself.
“The hint that this statement might not have actually been written by Dr Barbabella is that in it, he says that the medication was ‘prescribed by the White House Doctor’. He’s the WH Doctor,” Reiner wrote on X.
In a separate post, Reiner, who is a medical analyst on CNN, wrote: “Preventative skin treatments (such as topical 5 flurouracil) are commonly used to prevent overt skin cancer in people with precancerous skin lesions. We don’t know what specific treatment the president is receiving, but why all the secrecy for something that is potentially easy to treat and very common in older people?”
This isn’t the first time the White House has been accused of downplaying health concerns about Trump, the oldest president ever sworn into office. Throughout his second term, the Daily Beast has extensively reported on questions surrounding Trump’s health, including mental slip-ups, slurred words, and his efforts to cover bruising on his hands. For months, the White House has asserted that the bruising stems from the president’s frequent handshaking.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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