As a candidate, Trump issued three statements about his medical health:
Comment: Incredibly, these physical examinations, which one would expect to be routine, staid affairs, took on circus-like characteristics:
Hence, four times in three years confidence in the office of the President's physician was undermined -- a low ebb in its history. Even if one credulously believes that the President's medical team has been completely and honestly forthcoming, all this sturm und drang is itself dangerous, as it can easily detract from substantive medical issues -- as it already seems to have done with Trump's sleep.
This tweet from December 3, 2015 9 started it off:
The next day Dr. Bornstein wrote his first letter. Ten days after that, the letter was released publicly 3, heralded by a boastful cover note from the candidate that gets the name of his physician wrong:
This first letter of Dr. Bornstein's 3 was hardly the "full report" that candidate Trump promised in his tweet:
The release of this letter created a sensation, not so much for its lack of detail as for its laughably hyperbolic non-professional language and tone:
Nine months later NBC News interviewed him about the letter and reported that
Bornstein said that after he was asked to write the letter, he thought about what he would say all day but did not type it out until the last minute as a black car sent by Trump waited to collect it. He said he didn't even proofread it. 11The NBC report was headlined: "Wrote Health Letter in Just 5 Minutes as Limo Waited." When asked about the bombastic language Dr. Bornstein said: "I think I picked up his kind of language and then just interpreted it to my own." When asked specifically about the "healthiest individual" claim, Bornstein replied, "I like that sentence to be quite honest with you and all the rest of them are either sick or dead."
Thus, at this point in time (August 2016), Dr. Bornstein is still covering for Donald Trump.
A month after the NBC interview and two months before election day 2016, Bornstein released a second letter 2 12, more professional in language and tone. (With it, he also released a letter appointing him to the active staff at Lenox Hill Hospital, viewable here. At the time his first letter was released, he had been accused of inflating his connection to Lenox Hill.)
Here is Dr. Bornstein's second letter:
Sadly for him, the Dr. Bornstein saga did not end when Trump moved to Washington as President. Speaking too freely to the New York Times in February 2017 13, Dr. Bornstein remarked that Trump used two previously undisclosed medications: the hair-growth agent Propecia (finasteride), and a tetracycline antibiotic for the skin condition rosacea.
According to Dr. Bornstein, this rapidly precipitated two events:
With his hopes for being Presidential physician dashed in early 2017, Bornstein contradicted many of his earlier statements and admitted in May 2018 16 that Trump himself wrote the fatuous first letter released under Dr. Bornstein's name in 2015: "He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter." The White House did not respond to questions about Bornstein's claim.
Comment: Also includes annotations by Cillizza and Blake. Their interview transcript is archived here: MORE |
Comment: Dr. Bornstein became Trump's physician in 1980. Bornstein's letter is linked to by Frizell (op cit) and is archived here --> MORE |
Comment: This articles relates to the first of Dr. Bornstein's letters, reprinted here --> MORE |
Comment: The document is archived here --> MORE. Also highly informative is the press briefing where the report was delivered: MORE. |
Comment: A transcript of the press briefing is archived here --> MORE |
Comment: The document is archived here --> MORE |
Comment: The document is archived here --> MORE |
Comment: The document is unacceptably vague about dates. For example, it is not possible to determine on what date between Nov. 2019 and April 2020 the President's weight was measured. The document is archived here --> MORE |
Comment: This article links to Dr. Bornstein's second letter, with the Lenox Hill preface. |