Donald Trump has confirmed that he wore compression socks to treat his cankles amid growing scrutiny over his health as America’s oldest president.
In an explosive interview about his medical treatments, Trump also admitted that he applies makeup to his hands, saying that the large daily dose of aspirin he takes to thin his blood causes them to bruise easily.
The Daily Beast has led the way in reporting on Trump’s efforts to hide his swollen ankles and the globs of makeup on his hands.
Other media outlets largely ignored these issues, and the president and his inner circle have adamantly denied that he had any problems.
But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Trump said he wore medical compression socks to help with swelling in his ankles.
He visited Walter Reed Hospital in mid-July after suffering “mild swelling in his lower legs,” and an ultrasound showed he has “chronic venous insufficiency,” a common ailment in older people that makes it more difficult for the blood to travel to the heart from the legs through smaller veins.
Trump’s doctor, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella told the Journal that Trump was suffering from “superficial chronic venous insufficiency,” and he said the condition was treatable.
Trump said he tried compression socks but stopped because, “I didn’t like them.”
The Daily Beast previously reported that the president appeared to be trying to hide his cankles by sitting with his legs hidden under his Resolute desk in the Oval Office.
But he said that now he is trying to get up from his desk more and walk around, another method recommended by doctors to reduce swelling.
That appears to be all the exercise he is prepared to take. “To walk on a treadmill or run on a treadmill for hours and hours like some people do, that’s not for me,” he told the Journal.
Barbabella said Trump takes 325 milligrams of aspirin a day—a much larger dose than the usual 81 milligrams—for “cardiac prevention.”
“They’d rather have me take the smaller one,” said the president. “I take the larger one, but I’ve done it for years, and what it does do is it causes bruising.”
“I’m a little superstitious,” he explained as his reason for taking the high aspirin dose for 25 years.
“They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?” said Trump.
His skin is so thin that Pam Bondi made his hand bleed when she nicked him with her ring while giving him a high five at the GOP National Convention in Milwaukee.
“The ring hit the back of my hand, and, yes, there was a slight little cut,” said Trump. Aides told the Journal that similar bleeding incidents have happened on other occasions.
The president said in the interview that he daubs makeup on his hands after he gets “whacked again by someone.”
“I have makeup that’s, you know, easy to put on, takes about 10 seconds,” he added.
Trump, at 79, the oldest man to be U.S. president, scoffed at suggestions that his mental and physical health is deteriorating.
He insisted in the interview that he is in excellent shape and puts it down to “good genetics.”
