President Trump talks about his health after spending the 2024 campaign calling President Biden old.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Over the past year, President Trump has regularly appeared with makeup on the back of his right hand. He has also talked about getting an MRI and appears to fall asleep during meetings. Trump will turn 80 this year. He is the oldest person to ever assume the presidency. So all this has raised doubts about his health. In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump faced those questions head-on. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to talk about it. Hello, Daniela.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hello, Mary Louise.
KELLY: What did we learn from the Wall Street Journal interview?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, Trump addressed all of those points that you mentioned, like the makeup on the hand, which is often clearly visible. Trump said it’s because he bruises easily from the aspirin he takes. In that sense, we learned that he takes 325 milligrams per day of aspirin. That’s high. It is common for people to take a low dose of 81 milligrams as a blood thinner to prevent heart attacks and strokes. So Trump is taking four times as much. He said his doctors had told him to relax a little, but Trump said he doesn’t want thick blood, as he put it, running through his veins.
KELLY: And what about the MRI you’ve talked about undergoing? That, of course, raised questions about why he might have needed an MRI. Do we know?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, now he says it was, in fact, a CT scan. Trump had apparently gotten the name of the test wrong and his doctor said it was to rule out heart problems. Actually, in this entire interview, Trump seems quite defensive. He resents talking about his health and insists that he is in good health. Speaking of which, Trump posted this morning that he had passed a recent cognitive test. Now, he’s talked about those kinds of tests for years as proof that he’s still smart. Today I asked the White House for more information about that test and have not received a response.
KELLY: Okay. I mean, it’s hard not to notice that here is Donald Trump facing scrutiny for the exact same thing he criticized Joe Biden for on the campaign trail: showing his age.
KURTZLEBEN: Exactly. Trump called Biden Sleepy Joe throughout the campaign and relentlessly attacked him for getting older. Here was Trump at a rally mocking Biden for sleeping on the beach on vacation…
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But he has one skill that I wish I had. He is capable of falling asleep, cold as a stone, in front of the media. They are taking a photo. Who the hell wants to sleep in front of the media? I wish I had the ability to sleep like this.
KURTZLEBEN: …Which definitely further emphasizes that, yes, Trump now seems to fall asleep a couple of times during long meetings. Now, for his part, Trump stated in the newspaper that in those clips he simply relaxes by closing his eyes.
KELLY: I mean, in summary, Danielle, is there anything particularly concerning here? Given what we know about Trump’s age, his health, is there anything concerning about his ability to do the job of president?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, you know, you have those potential naps during meetings, but while there are those kinds of signs, it’s hard to talk about someone’s health without speculating. I mean, in the Journal article, they point out that Trump moves from one topic to another as he speaks and also that he sometimes makes factual errors: his words. Those are signs that many people associate with aging, and there is a lot of evidence of that because Trump appears in public a lot. Many days he takes the press to the Oval Office. But with Trump, it’s hard to say how much of that is actually age-related, since he’s done both since he first ran for president in 2016. He’s long boasted of doing what he calls weaving, jumping from one issue to another. And as for factual errors…
KELLY: Right.
KURTZLEBEN: …I mean, he has mistakes, which may or may not be age-related, but throughout his entire political career he has told a lot of lies and falsehoods. Actually, if you zoom out, something has changed over the years.
KELLY: Right.
KURTZLEBEN: It’s no surprise, but he insists that his genes keep him healthy.
KELLY: NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben, thank you.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.
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