Trump Goes to Walter Reed for First Physical of Second Term

At 78, Donald Trump is the oldest American President to take office. Now he’s undergoing the first physical of his second term. On Friday, he visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a physical exam and a series of medical tests. He wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he was ready for his check-up, and that he has “never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!”

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It is unclear how much information the White House will release from Trump’s medical exams. 

It’s been seven years since Trump has released extensive details about his physical health. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised he would release his health information, but didn’t, departing from decades of tradition among presidential candidates. After a bullet tore through his ear-lobe during an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, his former White House physician Ronny Jackson—now a congressman from Texas—released a letter describing the wound to his ear.

During the final two years of Trump’s first term, the White House dialed back how much information was shared publicly about Trump’s healthcare treatments. In October 2020, Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed with a severe case of COVID-19, but the White House released relatively few details about his health after he recovered from the illness. In 2019, Trump’s medical checkup was kept off his public schedule until days later, and the White House released little information about the results.

The last time the public received detailed information about Trump’s health was in 2018. During a 2018 check-up at Walter Reed overseen by Jackson, Trump’s heart rate and blood work was normal. At the time, Trump was taking a statin to lower his cholesterol, aspirin, and Propecia to prevent hair loss, and he received vaccine shots to prevent pneumococcal pneumonia and hepatitis A and B. 

At the time, Jackson stood on the podium at the White House briefing room and took questions from reporters about the exam. Jackson said Trump had “incredible genes” but he had advised Trump to exercise more and eat healthier food. “If he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years he might live to be 200 years old,” Jackson said.

Jackson wasn’t the first of Trump’s doctors to make hyperbolic statements about his health.

When Trump ran for President in 2015, his personal physician Harold Bornstein put out a famously glowing assessment. Bornstein wrote at the time that if Trump won the 2016 election he would be “the healthiest individual elected to the presidency”—a seemingly unscientific flourish in a medical report. Three years later, Bernstein told CNN that Trump had dictated the letter to him.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday that Trump’s physician will “provide an update” after the President’s physical “in the effort of transparency.” She said the Biden White House had a “lack of transparency” when it came to describing Biden’s “health and competence” and accused reporters of engaging in a “cover up.” President Biden had repeatedly mixed up the names of countries and lost his train of thought during public remarks and had cut back on press conferences and his interactions with the press.

—With reporting by Nik Popli