Doctors who reviewed Donald Trump’s latest medical report say it is conspicuously short on the clinical specifics that would support its rosy conclusions.
Trump’s personal physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, wrote in a memorandum that the 79-year-old president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function,” after a roughly three-hour examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The memo reported a perfect cognitive score, enviable low cholesterol levels, and a heart that an AI analysis estimated to be 14 years younger than the rest of him.
That last claim drew immediate ridicule from cardiologists.
“When I discuss this with some of my colleagues in cardiology, everyone laughed!” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who was former Vice President Dick a cardiologist, told CNN’s Laura Coates Live.
The memo cited results from a coronary CT angiography, an echocardiogram, and the AI-enhanced electrocardiogram—but omitted the specific metrics physicians said they would expect to see from those tests. There was no calcium score, no description of arterial plaque, and no CAD-RADS score, which would assess arterial narrowing. The report simply stated there is “no arterial obstruction or structural abnormalities,” language doctors said could mean only that there is no total blockage, not that the arteries are clean.
“If I was creating a report to send to another physician, I would have mentioned a little bit more about the carotid ultrasound,” Dr. William Shutze, a Texas vascular surgeon, told The Wall Street Journal. “What amount of plaque there is going to be—because almost all of us are going to have some buildup there.”
The echocardiogram results were similarly sparse. Trump’s 2018 report included an ejection fraction, the percentage of blood the heart pumps with each contraction, but this one did not.
The White House responded that medication lists in executive summaries “are often abbreviated for readability and relevance” and that “the absence of discussion regarding a specific medication, dosage, or historical medical condition should not be interpreted as a lack of monitoring or treatment.” It also said the absence of specific results “should be seen as confirmation that no clinically meaningful abnormalities were identified.”
The report was also notably silent on Trump’s neck rash, which appeared earlier this year and prompted a memo from Barbabella saying the president was using a preventive cream for an unspecified skin condition. Prior physicals noted sun damage and benign skin lesions in some detail, while this one didn’t mention the rash at all.
The report did note bruising on Trump’s hands, which Barbabella attributed to “frequent handshaking” and aspirin therapy. Trump previously told The Wall Street Journal that he takes more aspirin than his doctor recommends because he wants “nice, thin blood pouring through my heart,” but the memo didn’t specify his current dosage.
On his leg swelling, a condition diagnosed last year as chronic venous insufficiency, a common circulatory problem in older patients, the report noted “slight lower leg swelling” and “improvement from last year” without explaining why.
Trump had previously told the Journal he resisted wearing compression socks, the standard treatment. Doctors said improvement without treatment is unusual. The White House said the severity of the condition “can fluctuate over time.”
The cholesterol numbers were exceptional: an HDL of 70 mg/dL and an LDL of 53 mg/dL. “He’s got like the best cholesterol numbers you’ll see,” said Dr. Daniel Torrent, a Georgia vascular surgeon, who called it unusual for medication to produce such results. “We don’t usually manage people to the point where they’re that good.”
The White House said the numbers “are consistent with expected therapeutic outcomes.”
Trump’s physical included a prostate-specific antigen score, reported at 1 ng/mL, elevated from prior scores but still well within a healthy range. His predecessor, Joe Biden, did not include a PSA test in his physicals. Shortly after leaving office, Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, a cancer physicians said would almost certainly have been detected sooner with routine screening.
Taken together, the doctors said, the Trump report paints an oddly perfect picture with suspiciously little supporting evidence.
“That report is almost too good to be true for somebody of his age,” Shutze said. “This seems to be a filtered narrative.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung pushed back, saying Trump “has publicly released more detailed information about his health than any other president in history.” He criticized outside physicians for speculating about a patient not under their care.
It would not be the first time a Trump medical report strained credulity. During the 2016 campaign, his personal physician declared that Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” That doctor later said Trump had dictated the letter himself.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast that the doctors who spoke to the Journal “should focus on their own patients’ health.”
“Outside doctors wildly speculating about an individual’s health, especially when they aren’t a patient, is reckless and goes against the oath they took. Instead of getting quoted for articles for their own financial gain, they should focus on their own patients’ health,” he said.
Cheung added: “President Trump has publicly released more detailed information about his health than any other president in history— showing he is in excellent health. Compare that to Joe Biden, who clearly deceived the American people about his serious health condition and even Jill Biden admitted she was ‘frightened’ for Joe after watching his disturbing debate performance in which President Trump ran circles around him."
