Donald Trump’s doctor boasts in what can only be described as Trumpian fashion that if elected, the candidate would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
The letter from Trump’s physician, released Monday by Trump’s campaign, says the real estate mogul has had no significant medical problems and that a recent medical exam showed only positive results.
“Actually his blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory test results were astonishingly excellent,” Harold Bornstein of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York wrote.
Trump, for his part, said he was “fortunate to have been blessed with great genes,” noting that both parents had “very long and productive lives.”
“People have been impressed by my stamina, but to me it has been easy because I am truly doing something that I love,” he said.
The doctor’s letter says Trump has lost at least 15 pounds in the past year, takes 81 milligrams of aspirin daily and a low dose of a statin. His prostate specific antigen (PSA) test score was “very low,” he added.
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” he wrote. He said Trump hasn’t had cancer or any orthopedic surgery, only an appendectomy at age 10. He has no history of ever using alcohol or tobacco, he noted.
“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” he wrote.
Trump’s initial statement praised the report by the “highly respected Dr. Jacob Bornstein of Lenox Hill Hospital” -- though it was signed by Harold Bornstein, who wrote in the letter that he’s been Trump’s personal physician since 1980 and that his father, Jacob Bornstein, was previously Trump’s doctor. (The New York Times ran an obit for Jacob Bornstein in 2010; Trump’s campaign later fixed the mistake.)
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested it was “a lot of work, a lot of homework to do” to compare the health records of 44 presidents. But he said he wasn’t raising doubt about Bornstein.
“I would not call into question the medical credentials of somebody who decides they are ready to conduct a medical examination of Mr. Trump,” Earnest said. “That must have been a pretty interesting appointment.”
Trump told Men’s Health in 2013 that although he used to play “all sports” and was “always the captain of my teams,” he now stays in shape with long walks or a game of golf. Some might not consider it exercise, he allowed, “but I’ll tell you: When I play a few rounds on the weekend, I’ll come in Monday morning and I’ll have lost 3 or 4 pounds. That’s very pleasurable exercise, and it keeps you away from the refrigerator because you’re out on the course.”
If elected, Trump would be 70 on Inauguration Day, making him older than the nation’s oldest president, Ronald Reagan, who was 69 on Inauguration Day. A McClatchy-Marist Poll last month showed that by huge margins, registered voters don’t mind if their presidents are over 65, the age when many Americans retire from their jobs.
Lesley Clark: 202-383-6054, @lesleyclark