You don’t need to be a health care practitioner to see that the nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump is on the decline. From encouraging supporters to vote on January 5th to dodging everything that might include a challenging question, Trump is looking less and less like someone who belongs in the Situation Room and more and more like someone who should spend the rest of his days playing DJ at Mar-a-Lago and cheating at golf. While awaiting a long prison sentence, that is.
Hundreds of medical professionals are now sounding the alarm. In an open letter signed by more than 230 doctors and health care providers, they wrote, “In the limited opportunities we can examine his behavior, he’s providing a deeply concerning snapshot.”
Trump has refused to release his medical records, despite promising “very gladly” he’d do so on August 20, the signatories wrote. Without the real records, “we are left to extrapolate from public appearances,” they said. “And on that front, Trump is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office and displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity.”
The letter further states that what appear to be age-related “cognitive changes” affecting Trump’s “ability to function well in complex settings” can be seen in Trump’s public appearances.
If Trump wins again, he would be the oldest president in history at the end of his term, the letter noted. “His refusal to disclose even basic health information is a disservice to the American people. …Trump ought to be going above and beyond to provide transparency on his physical health and mental acuity, given his advancing age.”
That seems the bare minimum of what a presidential candidate should do to prove his fitness for office. But Trump won’t, other than to release a suspiciously uninformative letter from his toady, Ronny Jackson.
As CBS News reported, Kamala Harris has already released “detailed specifics” about her medical history and vitals. “And you have to ask, why is his staff [not] doing that?” she said during an interview.
CBS also pointed out that the signatories are part of a group called “Doctors for Harris,” which is unaffiliated with the Harris/Walz campaign. That’s a fair point. But it should also be pointed out that Trump has nothing near a comparable group of professionals vouching for his physical or cognitive fitness. I think we all know why.
We also know that Trump is a compulsive liar and that many of his lies are projections. The fact that he accuses Harris of being “mentally impaired" is another giant red flag any layperson can see. But it’s a signal of his own mental impairment(s), not hers.
