A top doctor has picked the “most extraordinary” of President Donald Trump’s litany of ailments and health habits.
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, joined CNN’s Jake Tapper on The Lead to discuss these points.
He noted the long list of things Trump suffers from, most notably his ever-bruised hands and bulbous ankles. But Reiner said one habit trumps them all.
“Well, that really is the most extraordinary thing,” Reiner said, responding to a question from Tapper about the 80-year-old’s propensity to doze off in public.
“Now, the president is a well-known night owl. And that’s not new. But what’s new is that over the last several months, he has a very hard time staying awake when he’s surrounded by people, often when he’s surrounded by people talking to him. And it happens very quickly. And it’s so unusual,” he said.
His comments came after Trump appeared to fall asleep during an Oval Office announcement on vaccines on Monday.
“We’ve never seen a president of the United States fall asleep in the Oval Office as people are talking to him, or in the Cabinet room, or in other meetings.
“But it’s been normalized. And that’s a serious medical issue. And in the president’s last comprehensive physical exam, there was no mention of that. There was no mention of the fact that the president has trouble staying awake during the day.”
Trump has made a habit of falling asleep in public, usually in the Oval Office and usually surrounded by people, including the press.
On Wednesday, Reiner had a run-in with the White House over an op-ed he published about Trump’s health issues. “Despite reassurances from the White House to the contrary, at times over the past year, the president has not looked well,” Reiner wrote in The New York Times.
“I am not Mr. Trump’s doctor, and have only reviewed his records that have been made public. But Mr. Trump is probably the most photographed president in American history, and a variety of physical ailments are easy to see.”
This earned him a bizarre rebuke from the White House. He was called “an ass-hat engaging in armchair diagnosis for political purposes. He is a disgrace to the medical profession.”
He responded on CNN. “The White House actually awarded me a certificate recognizing my service to the White House Medical Unit last year, given by the Trump White House Medical Unit. So maybe they should, you know, check with that first. But secondly, I haven’t made any diagnoses. And if you look at the op-ed in the New York Times, I simply ask questions,” he said.
