President Donald Trump outed a Republican lawmaker’s serious health woes at the White House while bragging about the GOP House majority.
The president, 79, put House Speaker Mike Johnson on the spot during a meeting on Monday to talk about Florida Rep. Neal Dunn’s grim diagnosis.
“We had one man who was very ill. It looked like he wasn’t going to make it. I don’t know. I won’t mention his name. Should I? Do other people know his name? Do you want to mention it? He’ll be proud. Go ahead, tell them, tell them the story,” Trump said, turning to the speaker next to him eagerly as if he was sharing delicious gossip.
Johnson appeared visibly uncomfortable as he was forced to address Dunn’s health in front of the cameras for the first time as Republicans hold just a one-seat majority in the House.
“Congressman Neal Dunn of Florida had some real health challenges, and it was very serious, and it had a pretty grim diagnosis,” Johnson spoke quickly. “I mentioned it to the president. I said, ‘Congressman Dunn is a real champion and a patriot because he’s still coming to work, and if others got this diagnosis they would be apt to go home and retire.’”
Trump cut him off by asking, “What was the diagnosis?”
“I mean, I think it was a terminal diagnosis,” Johnson said.
“He would be dead by June,” Trump declared.
“Ok, that wasn’t public,” Johnson cut in. “But yeah, okay, it was grim, that’s what I was gonna say.”
Those in the room could be heard gasping as the president kept sharing personal details about the 73-year-old lawmaker.
“With a heart problem, by the way. This was a heart problem,” Trump chimed in.
Johnson tried to take the reins from there and move on quickly.
“So the long story short, the president called him to encourage him and thank him, and they had a conversation and the president mentioned in the course of the conversation, ‘You know how to get my doctors involved,’ and they did, and within a number of hours, they took him to Walter Reed emergency surgery,” Johnson said quickly.
“The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he’s 30 years younger, and he walked into the conference meeting, and we thought we’d seen a ghost,” Johnson added.
That’s when the president went back to talking about Republicans’ razor-thin House majority.
“Mike called me, and he said, ‘Sir, we’re up by three, but we’re going to lose one by June.’ I said ‘who?’ ‘Neil Dunn,’” Trump shared. “He called to say that he was terminal. Really bad heart. There’s nothing they can do.”
“I said, ‘That’s bad.’ Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote,” Trump joked.
The president claimed that Dunn said he was going to “‘last this out for the president and you, and however long I live, I mean it looks like June is the time, but however long I live, I’m going to, I’m going to be voting for you.’”
The president went on to praise Dunn’s response as “really impressive” and then said he realized he had doctors in the White House who could help, calling them “miracle workers.”
“It was a long operation. They gave him more stents and more everything that you could have. I think he’s got everything that you could possibly have,” Trump said. “And they called up, they said, ‘Sir, I think he’ll be fine.’”
Trump brought up the story as he was discussing how Republicans have a one-to-three-seat majority in the House. Republicans currently have 218 seats to Democrats’ 214.
“I don’t want to have a terrible story about this: I did it for him first and for the vote second, but it was a close second, actually,” Trump concluded as the room laughed. “I did it for the vote second.”
The Daily Beast reached out to Dunn’s office for the latest update on his health.
