Donald Trump’s longtime physician said he wrote a strongly-worded bill of health for the White House hopeful in just five minutes while a limo sent by the Republican candidate waited outside his office, NBC News reported Friday.
Dr. Harold Bornstein defended the glowing and hastily authored assessment in an interview this week more than eight months after he penned what remains the only official medical statement concerning the candidate to be released by the Trump campaign.
“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Dr. Bornstein wrote in an December 4 letter addressed “To Whom My Concern [sic].”
Discussing his findings publicly for the first time Friday, the gastroenterologist admitted he had put off penning the assessment until a automobile dispatched by Mr. Trump had arrived to collect it from his office in Manhattan.
“I get rushed and I get anxious when I get rushed, so I try to get four or five lines done as fast as possible,” he told NBC. “In a rush, I think some of those words didn’t come out exactly the way they were meant.”
“I think I picked up his kind of language and then just interpreted it to my own,” explained Dr. Bornstein, who previously said he’s been Mr. Trump’s personal physician since 1980.
Indeed, his assessment immediately attracted criticism upon its release for using hyperbolic language not unlike that used frequently by Mr. Trump. A day before Dr. Bornstein authored the statement, the candidate said on Twitter that his longtime doctor was preparing a full medical report that “will show perfection.”
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” Dr. Bornstein wrote the following day.
“I don’t think he’s in any better or worse than the average person that goes and exercises every single day,” the physician told NBC on Friday. “Doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink — and that’s simply the best advantage you can have to live — and he’s got a good family history.”
But does that mean Mr. Trump would without a doubt be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”?
“I like that sentence to be quite honest with you and all the rest of them are either sick or dead,” Dr. Bornstein told NBC, presumably grouping President Obama and his living predecessors in the Oval Office in the “sick” category.
Mr. Trump’s health has received new interest in recent days after the candidate and his supporters have raised similar questions directed at his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump, 70, would be the oldest individual ever elected president if he wins on November 8.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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