Trump will undergo his annual physical Friday after years of reluctance
to share medical information
[April 11, 2025]
By WILL WEISSERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is undergoing his annual physical on
Friday, potentially giving the public its first details in years about
the health of a man who in January became the oldest in U.S. history to
be sworn in as president.
“I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!”
Trump, 78, posted on his social media site.
Despite long questioning predecessor Joe Biden 's physical and mental
capacity, Trump himself has routinely kept basic facts about his own
health shrouded in secrecy — shying away from traditional presidential
transparency on medical issues.
If history is any indication, his latest physical is likely to produce a
flattering report that's scarce on details. It will be conducted at
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will be the first
public information on Trump's health since an assassination attempt
against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July.
Rather than release medical records at that time, Texas Rep. Ronny
Jackson — a staunch supporter who served as his White House physician
and once joked in the White House briefing room that Trump could live to
be 200 if he had a healthier diet — wrote a memo describing a gunshot
wound to Trump’s right ear.
In a subsequent interview with CBS last August, Trump said he’d “very
gladly” release his medical records but never did.
Trump is three years younger than Biden. But on Inauguration Day of his
second term in January, Trump was five months older than Biden was
during his 2021 inauguration — making Trump the nation’s oldest
president to be sworn into office.
Before Jackson's memo, Americans hadn't seen key details about Trump's
health since November 2023, when Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald released a letter
to coincide with Biden’s 81st birthday, saying Trump was in “excellent”
physical and mental health.
The letter, posted on Trump’s social media platform, contained no
details — including Trump's weight, blood pressure and cholesterol
levels, or the results of any test. Instead, Aronwlad wrote that he'd
examined Trump that fall and found his “physical exams were well within
the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional,” while also
noting that Trump had “reduced his weight.”
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President Donald Trump speaks during an event on energy production
in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Trump was treated at Walter Reed for his serious bout with the
coronavirus in 2020. During that, Trump’s physician offered a rosy
prognosis on his condition, though his White House chief of staff
Mark Meadows said some of Trump’s vital signs were “very
concerning."
After he recovered, more details emerged that Trump had been sicker
than he'd let on.
But Trump largely refused to say more about his health at the time,
instead submitting to a pretaped, remote medical “evaluation” and
interview on Fox News Channel. That was conducted by Dr. Marc
Siegel, a Fox News contributor who had questioned Hillary Clinton's
physical ability to serve as president in 2016 and later urged the
Biden White House to test the then-president's cognitive acuity.
In November 2019, meanwhile, Trump's trip to Walter Reed for a
physical was omitted from his public schedule, breaking the White
House protocol of giving advance public notice of them.
The visit was revealed three days later, with Trump disclosing that
he'd had a “ very routine physical.” The White House released a
subsequent statement from the president’s then-personal physician,
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, saying it had been a “planned interim
checkup” kept "off the record” due to scheduling uncertainties.
Arguably, Trump's most famous past comments about his own health
came during a television interview in July 2020, when he listed off
“Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV" while attempting to demonstrate his
cognitive abilities.
Trump said that a collection of those five nouns, or ones like them,
stated in order, demonstrated mental fitness — and were part of a
cognitive test he had aced.
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