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American presidents don’t have a stellar record of transparency about their health problems.
After a polio diagnosis that caused paralysis of his lower body, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used a wheelchair to get around, but went to great lengths to conceal it from the public. John F Kennedy suffered debilitating back pain, but most Americans never had a clue, seeing only a vigorous and youthful politician.
And, more recently – and infamously – Joe Biden’s White House staff worked to conceal his age-related decline, until that was no longer possible. After a disastrous debate performance and belated press coverage, Biden called off his re-election bid in 2024.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that we don’t know very much about Donald Trump’s mental and physical health, except for what we can see with our own eyes.
But even that is plenty.
The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire listed some causes of concern in his piece titled A Different Kind of Fading President.
Among them: Trump’s late-night social-media storm of 50 unhinged messages; his apocalyptic threat to wipe out a civilization; the increased nastiness and frequency of insults to reporters; his appearing to fall asleep in meetings or at public events; the deep bruises on his hands; his extensive use of unstructured “executive time”, accompanied by a greatly reduced travel schedule; and the “long, odd tangents in speeches” that seem even longer and odder even than his previous tangents.
“Never known for his ability to self-censor, Trump seems to have completely abandoned any sort of filter,” Lemire wrote, noting Trump’s startling celebration of former FBI director Robert Mueller’s death, and his meme widely interpreted as depicting himself as Jesus – though after a backlash he denied that was his intention.
Trump, the oldest person ever elected US president, will turn 80 on 14 June. That is not as old as Biden was when he left office in early 2025, but it’s getting close.
A few days ago, Trump made his fourth visit to Walter Reed hospital in his second term as president; it raised eyebrows since so much of the president’s healthcare and testing can be done at the White House.
He claims to have exceptional health, but he is not exactly a reliable narrator. This is the president, after all, who insists that the 2020 election was rigged, who has declared the misguided war with Iran victorious, and who (according to a Washington Post accounting) lied or made false statements more than 30,000 times during his first term.
So, we must take with a hefty block of salt the declarations that followed that hospital visit.
“Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” Trump posted on social media.
Sure, and the strait of Hormuz is wide open because he said so.
Given what’s obvious to the naked eye, and what’s logical given his advanced age, the Trump White House owes the American public – and the world – quite a bit more than the usual bombast and bragging.
What tests did he take? What were the results?
Does he have some sort of condition (as former vice-president Dick Cheney’s cardiologist, Dr Jonathan Reiner, suggested recently on CNN) like “severe daytime somnolence” that is causing him to fall asleep during the day? Does that relate in some way to possible dementia, as Reiner suggested it might?
Getting the answers to these questions is not just a matter of curiosity. It’s a matter of whether he is competent to be president of the United States from a physical and mental health perspective. After all, this is the man who unilaterally began a misguided war with Iran only weeks ago, and who has immense power and resources to do whatever his whims dictate.
Not just for Trump, but for all those who will follow him, there should be mandatory reporting to the public on the president’s health, both physical and mental.
Yes, we all have come to expect privacy about our health and our medical care. But different standards should apply for someone in such a position of unbridled power.
Trusting any politician’s declaration of perfect health is a dubious proposition. History, and the history of concealment, tells us that. Given the political consequences, it’s no wonder that the president of the United States wants to boast about acing every medical test. But that’s simply not enough when so much is at stake.
And make no mistake, the public is concerned. Fewer than half of US adults believe that Trump now possesses the mental acuity or physical health to be an effective president, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll from last month.
Transparency about the president’s health should be the rule not the exception. It should be required – not a matter of whim, especially when presidential whims can be so unpredictable and so dangerous.
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Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
