President Donald Trump’s former doctor, Harold Bornstein, has reversed his story about a hyperbolic 2015 letter he wrote praising the then-candidate’s “physical strength and stamina” as “extraordinary.”
“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Bornstein memorably wrote in the December 4, 2015, letter. The gastroenterologist later insisted to CNN’s Drew Griffin that the words were his own. “Did I really write that letter? Yeah,” he said.
On Tuesday, after claiming that Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller “raided” his office, Bornstein came clean about the letter’s true authorship.
“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN Tuesday. “I just made it up as I went along.”
This revelation may not come as a surprise, given the letter’s hyperbolic claims. The missive also included very scant medical evidence for these claims, beyond citing a blood pressure of 110/65, described as “astonishingly excellent.” The letter did claim Trump had lost 15 points over the last year, described his cardiovascular health as “excellent,” and acknowledged he took “81 mg of aspirin daily and a low dose of statin.”
Later, Bornstein offered a more professional health assessment, including statistics like Trump’s height and weight, and more in-depth prescription medications. He insisted that he had rushed the letter because he was busy.
“I was just rushed for time,” Bornstein said in September 2016. “I had people to see.”
As for writing the letter and later claiming it was his own, the doctor told CNN on Tuesday, “That’s black humor, that letter. That’s my sense of humor.”
“It’s like the movie ‘Fargo’: It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction,” he added.
Bornstein said the candidate “dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there. They came to pick up their letter at 4 0’clock or something.”
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