Trump checkup comes as health questions linger
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is getting his first medical checkup since taking office, a head-to-toe exam on Friday as questions swirl about the health and fitness of the oldest person ever elected to the nation’s highest office.
In advance, the 71-yearold president has pushed back vigorously against suggestions he’s mentally unfit, declaring himself “a very stable genius.”
Trump raised concern last month when he slurred some words on national TV. When asked about it, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said questions about Trump’s health were “frankly, pretty ridiculous” and blamed his slurred speech on a dry throat.
More questions have been raised in the weeks since, given the tone of some of his tweets and the reported comments of some of the people who deal with him day to day. Some were recently published in a new book about his first year, which Sanders denounced as “complete fantasy” for its portrayal of Trump as undisciplined, child-like and in over his head.
Trump was 70 when he was inaugurated a year ago to handle the around-theclock demands of president.
Ronald Reagan, who served two terms, was a year younger when he took office in 1981.
The president is to fly by helicopter Friday to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington in Bethesda, Md., for the exam.
There is no requirement for a president to have a physical, but modern officeholders undergo them regularly and release a doctor’s report stating that they are “fit for duty.”
Trump will not undergo a psychiatric exam, the White House said.