A top doctor pushed back on the White House resorting to personal attacks on him for raising questions about Donald Trump’s health and blasting the administration for keeping the American people in the dark about his decline.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who served as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s cardiologist and is a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, sounded the alarm about the president and lack of information about his health in an op-ed on Wednesday, where he put forward seven questions he believes the White House needs to answer.
It comes as Trump, 80, has been spotted with visible bruising on his hands and arms, has appeared with swollen ankles, and has repeatedly appeared to be struggling to stay awake in public since returning to office.
However, the president and top officials remain largely tight-lipped about his health or, at times, offer implausible explanations for what is easily observed.
Reiner appeared on CNN on Thursday, where he doubled down on his concerns about the president’s apparent deterioration. During the interview, host Pamela Brown read the White House’s statement attacking him in response to his concerns, but Reiner was quick to clap back.
“The statement reads, ‘President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible and energetic president in American history,’” Brown read before paraphrasing the rest of the White House statement live on air as it appeared on the screen.
The statement attributed to spokesperson Davis Ingle, 32, continued: “Jonathan Reiner is an a**-hat engaging in armchair diagnosis for political purposes. He is a disgrace to the medical profession.”
Asked for his response, Reiner quickly pointed out that the White House under Trump gave him a certificate recognizing his service in its medical unit just last year.
“Maybe they should check with that first,” he fired back. “But secondly, I haven’t made any diagnosis, and if you look at the op-ed in The New York Times, I simply ask questions about things that are visible to everyone, so if the White House wants to provide the diagnosis for why the president has bruises on his hands and swelling in his legs and particularly why he struggles to stay awake, you know, I’m all ears, I want to hear it.”
“I’m not making any diagnosis; I’m just asking questions,” he reiterated.
The Daily Beast followed up with the White House about the diagnosis behind Trump’s apparent struggle to stay awake in public, but Ingle responded with the same statement attacking Reiner.
“I think the public should know that there are several unanswered questions about the president’s health,” Reiner said on Thursday. “I don’t think the president looks well.”
Reiner noted during his CNN appearance the persistent chronic bruises that have repeatedly appeared on both of Trump’s hands.
The White House has attributed the bruising on his hand to frequent handshaking while taking aspirin, but Reiner called the explanations inadequate.
The longtime doctor also called the president’s visible struggles to stay awake in public “troubling” and “disturbing to see.”
As recently as Monday, Trump appeared to be dozing off during an executive order signing event in the Oval Office, the latest in a series of appearances in which he has repeatedly slumped in his chair with his eyes closed as others spoke.
“All of that put together paints a picture of a president who has active medical issues who doesn’t appear well in public,” Reiner said. “The public in a representative democracy like the United States with a leader with such a consequential job, I think the public has the right to know the status of the president’s health.”
