Instead of focusing on Donald Trump’s profound cognitive decline and his visibly terrible health during the 2024 election, the media has only *really* started talking about Trump’s health in the past year. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the discussion too, because they really couldn’t care less about their despicable double-standards and rank hypocrisy. Well, here we go. Yet another big piece on Trump’s health, this time in a New York Magazine cover story. I read/skimmed the whole piece so you don’t have to, because this is some overwrought, overwritten bullsh-t. The basic gist is that it’s obvious to everyone that Dementia Don is barely limping along mentally and physically, but absolutely no one within the fascist regime will say that, on or off the record. Trump has basically threatened or bribed all of his Walter Reed physicians too, so they dutifully parrot the literal party line. It’s all very North Korea-propaganda. Dear Leader is immortal, says Dear Leader. Some notable moments:
Trump’s immediate threat: “Let’s sit for a couple of minutes. I hate to waste a lot of time on this, but if you’re going to write a bad story about my health, I’m going to sue the ass off of New York Magazine. There will be a time when you can write that story, maybe in two years, three years, five years — five years, no one is going to care, I guess. Go ahead and sit down.”
Why NY Mag is allowed to write about Trump’s health: Despite the president’s protests, the White House realizes that the time to talk about his health is now. Speculation about his fitness for office is rampant; armchair physicians have given him months and sometimes even days to live. “That right there looks like a leg bag for a urinary catheter,” a physical therapist claimed in an Instagram with 19 million views, pointing to a bulge in Trump’s pants. In recent months, Trump has been caught seeming to fall asleep during public events, making him the butt of recurring jokes on The Onion (“Trump Appears to Doze During Stroke”). His right hand is constantly bruised and often bandaged. In July, his ankles swelled up like the Michelin Man, a symptom, his doctors said, of “chronic venous insufficiency” — a common circulatory condition. In August, when Trump took a break from public appearances for a few days, “Trump Is Dead” began trending on social media. “I got calls from friends that said, ‘Thank God you picked up the phone,’” Trump told me. “‘Because there’s a report that you died.’”
His general appearance: “I feel the same as I did 40 years ago,” he said, settling in behind the Resolute desk. Warm afternoon light from the window illuminated his famous hair, once dyed golden and now its natural white — his “only concession to age,” one of his senior staffers told me. In person, Trump looks trimmer than he does on television, though he denies he’s ever been on a GLP-1 or, as he calls it, “the fat drug.” (His last physical, this past April, listed him as weighing 224 pounds, but he told me he’s currently “about 235.”) He stands a little hunched and his eyes are puffy, but he looks pretty good for a 79-year-old. His hearing, according to a senior staff member, isn’t what it used to be (the staffer doesn’t think Trump has noticed this about himself, despite regularly leaning in and requesting people speak up). His right hand, warm and soft during our handshake, looked like rhino hide on the back: dry and gray, the notorious bruise spread out like an inkblot test.
Eric Trump on keeping his father’s demented mind occupied: “He’s having more fun building this ballroom than I can possibly tell you,” Eric Trump told me in January on the day the building’s architect released plans for its $400 million construction. Eric said his father isn’t really one to talk much about the time he has left in this world. “He’s superstitious,” he said. “He likes occupying his mind with what’s in the present and not as much with what’s in the future. He will say, ‘You have the most beautiful assets in the world, and you will be able to enjoy them for a long time to come.’ Is it in some way on everybody’s mind? Of course. But he believes, and so do I, he has a lot of years left.”
Trump’s father had Alzheimer’s: Fred Trump died in 1999 at age 93. He had, Trump said, a “heart that couldn’t be stopped” with almost no health conditions to speak of throughout his long life. “He had one problem,” Trump said. “At a certain age, about 86, 87, he started getting, what do they call it?” He pointed to his forehead and looked to his press secretary for the word that escaped him. “Alzheimer’s,” Leavitt said. “Like an Alzheimer’s thing,” Trump said. “Well, I don’t have it.” “Is it something you think about at all?” I asked. “No, I don’t think about it at all. You know why?” he said. “Because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever.”
Mary Trump thinks Sleepy Don has Alzheimer’s too: “One of the first times I noticed it,” she told me, “was at some event where he was being honored. And I looked at him and saw this deer-in-the-headlights look, like he had no idea where he was.” Now, when she watches her uncle on the public stage, Mary says she often sees flashes of her grandfather. “Sometimes it does not seem like he’s oriented to time and place,” she said. “And on occasion, I do see that deer-in-the-headlights look.”
Trump on his genetics: “I know this. Genetically, I’m in great shape. My mother and her family lived very long, well into their 90s. No heart disease in my family. No this, no that. I have this friend whose mother died at 49 of a heart attack. His father died at 51 of a heart attack. He’s now 60. I said, ‘You’re f–ked.’ He watches everything he eats. But you can’t beat genetics.”
Trump’s diet: Trump’s diet is famously terrible. “He eats a ton of candy, and he eats meat,” one senior White House official told me. “No vegetables.” (“I don’t know how he’s alive,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said of Trump’s “unhinged” eating habits.) He doesn’t believe in exercise. Recently, after he’d been dealing with swelling in his lower legs and ankles owing to his circulatory condition, doctors recommended he walk more. He asked his staff if there was anything else he could do instead. And he barely sleeps. There are members of his team who worry his lifestyle may not be sustainable in the long term. “He will collapse,” a senior staffer said, referring to his need for weekend naps. Trump, however, brushes off any suggestion that he should get more rest. “I think five hours is plenty,” he said. “I find that when I’m really enjoying myself, I sleep less.”
At the end of the story, they bring in one of Trump’s physicians, someone who was also one of President Obama’s doctors. The doctor was asked point-blank who was in better shape, who was healthier, between Trump and Obama. The doctor said… Trump. Trump was so pleased. The way Trump’s staff and family speak about him is very “just let grandpa believe he’s still working at his big-boy job.” Remember, during the Biden presidency, the press screamed, cried and threw up constantly at the idea that Biden delegated and rested like a normal senior? There’s not even a hint of that same kind of outrage, even though it’s abundantly clear that Trump is passing out in meetings, constantly being taken in for cognitive tests and that he’s not really in charge of anything. Anyway, I’m trying to moderate my expectations here, but I’ll always say a prayer for those Big Macs and large-dose aspirins to do the lord’s work. Oh, and that section about Alzheimer’s is… fascinating.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of New York Magazine.
