Top Doctor Calls BS on Trump’s Twisted Heart Attack Claim
The cardiologist dismantled the president’s boast that a stricken rallygoer would just be “collateral damage.”
Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images
CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner is calling BS on Donald Trump after the president claimed his White House doctors would let a rally attendee die of a heart attack rather than leave his side.
Trump made the remarks in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Wednesday, veering into an unusual hypothetical about what would happen if someone in the audience suffered a medical emergency.
“I travel with more doctors than any human being. If people get sick in the audience, they don’t, they leave them alone,” Trump told the crowd.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner is a frequent critic of President Donald Trump.
CNN
The president then singled out an attendee, suggesting the man looked as though he might have a heart attack, before claiming his medical team would refuse to intervene.
“You know what they call ’em? Collateral damage. If that person right over there, a friend of mine. He looks like s--t, actually. He looks like he’s ready to have a heart attack. If he actually had a heart attack, you know what my doctors would do that follow the president, all presidents? They would leave him alone,” Trump claimed.
The president continued by imagining himself pleading with his doctors to save the man, only to be rebuffed by staff insisting they could not leave Trump’s side.
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“I’d say, ‘Please help him.’ ‘No, sir. We can’t leave your side,’ I said, ‘But he’s dying of a heart attack.’ ‘Sir, he’s collateral damage.’ Can you believe it?”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who had his first heart attack at just 37 years old, and his cardiologist Jonathan Reiner.
Michele Eve Sandberg/Corbis via Getty Images
Reiner, a CNN medical analyst who previously served as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s cardiologist, was quick to challenge the account, saying the president’s version of events bore no resemblance to how White House medical personnel operate.
“This is completely untrue, and an actual insult to the fabulous doctors, nurses, and PAs of the White House Medical Unit,” Reiner posted on X.
“Over the years I’ve been honored to get to know many members of the WHMU and I know that they would never call a spectator ‘collateral damage’. They would save their life.”
Reiner subsequently pointed to past incidents in which presidents have personally called attention to spectators in need of medical assistance.
“It’s easy to find examples of people going down in the crowd and Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden calling for help for the spectator,” he wrote.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle responded by calling Reiner a “Democrat hack doctor” and “disgrace to the medical profession.”
“If it quacks like a duck, it may actually just be a Democrat hack doctor. President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in American history. Jonathan Reiner is a total moron engaging in armchair diagnosis for political purposes. He is a disgrace to the medical profession,” Ingle told the Daily Beast.
Examples from Trump’s own administration show doctors doing exactly what he claimed they don’t do.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has stepped in to help people experiencing medical emergencies at presidential events on multiple occasions.
Dr. Mehmet Oz has come to the aid of sick people at White House events several times.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
In March, a woman attending a Trump rally in Kentucky collapsed while the president was speaking. Trump stopped his remarks and called out for medical assistance, asking, “Do we have a doctor in the house? A doctor?”
Oz was among those who rushed to assist the woman, while Trump asked for “Ave Maria” to be played.
The incident was not an isolated one. In November 2025, Oz also sprang into action after a man fainted in the Oval Office during an announcement by Trump about reducing the cost of prescription weight-loss drugs.
The American Medical Association says physicians have an ethical obligation to provide care in medical emergencies.
Reiner has been a frequent critic of the president.
In August, he demanded the White House come clean and reveal the full details about Trump’s health, claiming it is rapidly declining in plain sight after he was caught falling asleep in the Oval Office “over and over again.”
The cardiologist also cited the “massive” swelling in the president’s legs, and “obvious” bruising on both hands that “will just not go away.”
“The president doesn’t look well, and hasn’t looked well for much of the last year,” Reiner told a CNN host. “He has perhaps the most consequential job on the planet.”
The Daily Beast has doggedly tracked Trump’s health, including the persistent bruising on his hands since it first appeared in February 2025.
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