US President Donald Trump dismissed concerns about his health in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal, despite attention being drawn to his sometimes sleepy appearance and recent spots of makeup on his hands.
The interview was published in Thursday’s newspaper. Wall Street Journal reporters bombarded the page with questions about Mr. Trump’s age, health and recent health treatment statements.
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The US president seemed to react with some signs of mild annoyance. “Let’s talk about health for the 25th time,” President Trump told reporters at the beginning of the conversation.
Mr. Trump is currently 79 years old. If he serves a full second term, he will be 82 years old by the end of that term.
That would make him the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, breaking the record set by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
But just as Mr. Biden faces intense scrutiny over his aging mind and body, so too does Mr. Trump. Since taking office for a second term in January 2025, Trump has been recorded nodding in public, and in December a close-up of his hands showed spots of heavy makeup.
President Trump himself was alarmed in October, telling reporters that he had undergone a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, which is commonly used to diagnose and monitor serious conditions such as cancer, heart disease and other diseases that affect soft tissue.
President Trump insists there’s nothing wrong with it
In an interview Thursday, Trump backtracked, saying he had undergone a computed tomography (CT) scan, which has less detail and is faster, rather than an MRI scan.
One of his doctors had also previously identified the procedure as a CT scan rather than an MRI.
When discussing the mix-up, President Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he regrets taking any steps because it fueled speculation among critics and the media.
“In hindsight, it’s too bad I took it because it gave me a little bit of ammunition,” Trump told the newspaper.
“If they didn’t do that, I’d be much better off because the fact that I took it made me think, ‘Hey, there’s something wrong with me.'” Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. ”
He denied having any illness. “My health is perfect,” he told reporters.
President Trump also rejected the idea that he fell asleep at a public meeting. In one example, during President Trump’s Cabinet meeting on Dec. 2, the president’s eyelids appeared to droop and he leaned forward, as if nodding.
However, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump accused the media of creating false rumors. “Sometimes they take pictures of me blinking and they catch me in that blink,” he said of the alleged sleeping incident.
Still, he acknowledged to the newspaper that he had asked White House staff to reduce their schedules to focus on more important meetings, but stressed that the decision had nothing to do with his alertness or physical fitness.
President Trump said, “I’ve never been a bad sleeper.”
high dose aspirin
One of the big revelations from the interview with this magazine was the large amount of aspirin that President Trump admitted to taking.
“They say aspirin is good for thinning the blood, but I don’t want thick blood flowing into my heart,” Trump said. “I want thin, delicious blood to flow through my heart.”
Daily aspirin therapy may be recommended to prevent heart attacks and strokes, especially in older adults.
However, a typical dose starts at about 75 mg, according to the Mayo Clinic, but President Trump told the magazine he takes about 325 mg per day.
“They would rather have me see the little one,” Trump said of his doctors. “I choose the bigger one, and have done so for years.”
President Trump blamed high doses of aspirin for his easy bruising on his hands, which he said was also a cause for intense public scrutiny. He explained that he wears makeup to cover up “if someone hits me again.”
“I do makeup that’s easy and takes about 10 seconds,” he said, referring to a past incident in which Attorney General Pam Bondi accidentally cut her hand with a ring.
Trump, an avid golfer, also admitted to the magazine that he doesn’t share the enthusiasm for exercise and fitness shared by Cabinet members like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth.
“I just don’t like it. It’s boring,” Trump said. “Walking or running on a treadmill for hours on end like some people is not for me.”
Despite this, President Trump announced last August that he would reinstate the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, a nationwide physical fitness test for elementary school students in public schools. This test was phased out in 2013 in favor of more comprehensive fitness standards.
Members of the Trump administration have also been criticized for their fatphobic comments, particularly directed at top decorated military leaders.
At a meeting in Quantico, Virginia, in October, Hegseth told hundreds of military leaders that he was tired of “looking at combat formations” and “seeing fat troops” and going into the Pentagon and “seeing fat generals and admirals in the hallways.”
The fitness of the president has become an increasingly pressing concern in American politics, especially since the chaotic 2024 presidential election, in which Mr. Biden withdrew from re-election less than four months before the vote, citing questions about his age.
During a particularly disastrous June 2024 presidential debate, Biden, then 81, appeared to be struggling to complete his thoughts.
Mr. Trump, who has faced similar criticism, has criticized Mr. Biden as “Sleepy Joe” during his campaign and continues to draw on the strength of his Democratic rival as a contrast to himself.
But questions about the aging of the president have become a perennial concern as older presidential candidates take office.
Republican Ronald Reagan famously faced rumors about his abilities, especially when he ran for a second term in the 1980s. He was 77 years old when he retired, and by 1994 he announced that he had Alzheimer’s disease.
But Trump has consistently denied feeling the ravages of aging, and in Thursday’s interview he used the opportunity again to attribute his success to his genes, saying, “I have very good genetics.”
