FIGHTING FIT?

Trump, 79, Posts Dubious Health Brag After Hours at Walter Reed

The president’s claim will do little to allay critics’ concerns about his fitness for office.

President Donald Trump has declared that his latest hospital check-up went perfectly, despite a litany of concerns about his health.

After spending the morning at Walter Reed Medical Center for the third time in just over a year, the 79-year-old president returned to the White House shortly before 1 p.m. and posted an update as he returned from the hospital.

“Just finished my 6 month physical at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Everything checked out PERFECTLY. Thank you to the great Doctors and Staff! Heading back to the White House. President DJT,” he wrote.

The White House is yet to provide an official medical report so it is not known how well the examination went.

But Trump’s not-so-humble brag comes amid growing concerns about the president’s health from doctors, Democrats and some within MAGA world. His reference to a “6 month physical” also raised eyebrows.

Trump, who turns 80 on June 14, is the oldest American president to be inaugurated. He spent years mocking his predecessor Joe Biden’s mental and physical health, but now faces many questions about his own capacity to serve, with frequent bruises on his hands, swollen ankles and increasingly erratic behavior.

Photographers captured his makeup-covered discolored hand as he marked Memorial Day at Arlington Cemetery on Monday, where he was also spotted with his eyes closed for an extended time during Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth’s speech.

The White House and allies regularly insist that the president remains sharp and active. But it is not the first time he has fallen asleep during pubic events, earning him the nickname “Dozy Don” - as well as speculation about chronic insomnia.

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“Chronic insomnia is a severe illness. It can result in an increase in risk of dementia, decrease in cognitive effects in older people,” leading cardiologist Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Monday.

“He’s fallen asleep in the Oval Office on multiple occasions with people talking to him in the Cabinet room, and I was concerned yesterday that he might have fallen asleep at Arlington National Cemetery during Memorial Day observances.”

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Trump has also taken to increasingly boasting about “acing” cognitive tests - which are in fact screening tests for dementia - in an apparent attempt to deflect from concerns about his mental acuity.

A Daily Beast analysis of his transcripts and interviews has shown that the president has referenced these tests about 20 times over the past year, often unsolicited.

The references intensified after Trump’s April 2025 medical examination - the first one he took in his second term - when he told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I took a cognitive test... I got every answer right.”

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Since then, he has repeatedly turned to the subject in rallies, meetings, interviews and Truth Social posts, often framing the tests as proof of his mental sharpness and contrasting himself with Biden.

The most recent reference took place in New York last Friday, when he told supporters that he can handle being called a tyrant and a dictator— but hates being called dumb.

Speaking at what was supposed to be a rally on affordability, Trump once again veered off script to relay a story about a conversation he claims he had with his doctor after critics took aim at his mental capacity.

“They hit me with a bad one: He’s a dumb person. D-U-M, not the B,” Trump said.

“Most people don’t know it has a B.”

“I said, ‘Doctor, I don’t mind being called a brilliant tyrant dictator, but I don’t want to be called dumb,’” the president continued, as he recalled the conversation in vivid detail.

“‘What do I do, doctor? Is there some kind of test I can take?’ He said, ‘Actually, sir, there is. It’s a cognitive test.’ I said, ‘How many presidents have taken it?’ ‘None… No people have taken it.’ I said, ‘Well, is it good or bad? Is it tough?’”

The test Trump has previously taken is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which essentially screens for dementia. But experts say the fact that he has taken three in such a short window could be concerning.

“If you have one MoCA, that’s like taking your temperature,” Dr. Henry David Abraham, professor of psychiatry emeritus at Tufts University School of Medicine, recently told the Daily Beast.

“If a temperature is OK, you don’t come back every 10 minutes and take another temperature. But if it’s not OK, then you want to see where it’s going.”

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Farrah TomazinPolitical Correspondent

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