The letter released by the Trump campaign last December regarding the candidate’s health written by Trump’s personal physician was created in only five minutes while a campaign limo waited outside.
Dr. Harold Bornstein, Trump’s personal physician since 1980, said in the letter that “if elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
“His health is excellent, especially his mental health,” he said in an exclusive interview at his Park Avenue office.
The four-paragraph letter — the only medical information released by Trump — was written and released in December but has drawn fresh scrutiny in recent days as Trump’s allies have questioned Hillary Clinton’s health, despite a more detailed two-page letter from her doctor that said she has no serious issues.
In his letter, Bornstein said there were no “significant medical problems” in Trump’s history and that a recent examination “showed only positive results.”
Bornstein justified his glowing analysis of Trump’s health by comparing the candidate’s condition with past presidents:
Asked how he could justify the hyperbole, Bornstein said, “I like that sentence to be quite honest with you and all the rest of them are either sick or dead.”
He went on to say that the Oval Office has been occupied by presidents with dementia or tumors or even men who were “paranoid” or “psychotic.”
Bornstein said that after he was asked to write the letter, he thought about what he would say all day but did not type it out until the last minute as a black car sent by Trump waited to collect it. He said he didn’t even proofread it.
The doctor said he would not normally use such over-the-top language in a letter for a patient but he made an exception for Trump — who just two weeks before had tweeted that the doctor’s assessment would show “perfection.”
“I think I picked up his kind of language and then just interpreted it to my own,” Bornstein said.
When he sat down to write the letter, Bornstein — who said he is board-certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology — gushed that Trump’s lab results were “astonishingly excellent.” He state that the businessman’s “cardiovascular status is excellent” but noted that he was taking a low dose of aspirin and a low dose of a cholesterol-busting statin.
His blood pressure was a healthy 110/65, and a PSA test used to detect prostate cancer was “very low.”
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” the doctor wrote.
EXCLUSIVE: @realDonaldTrump doc says he picked up Trump's language in health letter & 'interpreted it into my own.' pic.twitter.com/wb3pMPmO2C
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) August 26, 2016
Trump isn’t Superman, but outwardly, his health appears to be excellent. However, the over-the-top language and the fact that Bornstein didn’t examine the candidate before writing the letter damage Trump’s ability to raise questions about Clinton’s health.
Clinton partisans are using this story as a way to question Trump’s health. The campaign has cancelled four events this past week and that, too, is being cited as evidence that something is wrong with Trump.
The Phoenix event has joined the growing list of rallies that Trump has canceled. The Republican nominee has already canceled rallies in Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon.
The cancellation of a string of campaign events comes at the same time as NBC News is reporting that Donald Trump’s doctor did not do a full health evaluation on him. According to NBC, the only medical letter that Trump has released was written by his doctor in five minutes while a limo waited outside. Trump’s doctor stands by the letter that he wrote, but the letter is not the same as medical records or proof of Trump’s physical health.
The cancellations probably have more to do with the campaign getting more realistic about what states are in play. Oregon was never going to go red, and Colorado appears, at this point, to be a lost cause (Clinton is so confident, she pulled all advertising out of the state). Nevada is closer, but Trump has an uphill climb to win. With time growing short, expending a lot of resources for six electoral votes doesn’t make any sense.
As for the recent cancellation of a rally in Arizona, the campaign announced that they were changing venues, not cancelling the rally.
Trump’s health is not in question. And as long as the press pretends that Hillary Clinton is in good health, the physical fitness of both candidates will not be an issue.
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