‘My health is perfect’: Trump rejects scrutiny of his age and fitness | Donald Trump News

US President Donald Trump has dismissed concerns about his health in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, despite scrutiny over his sometimes sleepy appearance and recently appearing makeup stains on his hand.

The interview appeared in Thursday’s edition of the newspaper. In their pages, Wall Street Journal journalists asked Trump questions about his age, physical fitness and statements about his recent health treatments.

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The American president seemed to react with slight irritation on certain points. “Let’s talk about health care again for the 25th time,” Trump told interviewers at the start of their conversation.

Trump is currently 79 years old. If he fully completes his second term, he will be 82 years old at the end of it.

That would make him the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, breaking the record set by his predecessor, Joe Biden.

But just as Biden has faced increased scrutiny due to his aging mind and body, so has Trump. Since taking office for a second term in January 2025, Trump has been recorded appearing to fall asleep during public appearances, and close-up images of his hand, as recently as December, show thick stains of makeup.

Trump himself also raised alarms in October when he told reporters that he had undergone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a procedure commonly used to diagnose and monitor serious illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and other disorders affecting soft tissues.

“Everything is fine,” insists Trump

In Thursday’s interview, Trump backtracked, clarifying that he did not receive an MRI but rather a computed tomography (CT) scan, which offers less detail and is faster.

One of his doctors had already identified the procedure as a CT scan instead of an MRI.

Discussing the mix-up, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he regretted resorting to any procedure because it fueled his criticism as well as media speculation.

“In retrospect, it’s a shame I took it because it gave them a little ammunition,” Trump told the newspaper.

“I would have been a lot better off if they hadn’t done it, because the fact that I took it was like, ‘Oh my God, is something wrong?’ Well, everything is fine.

He denied suffering from any illness. “My health is perfect,” he told reporters.

Trump also rejected the idea that he dozed off during public meetings. In one instance — during Trump’s Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting — the president’s eyelids appeared to droop and he slumped forward, as if falling asleep.

But in his Wall Street Journal interview, Trump accused the media of creating false rumors. “Sometimes they take a picture of me blinking, blinking, and they catch me blinking,” he said of the alleged sleeping incidents.

He nevertheless acknowledged to the newspaper that he had asked White House staff to reduce their schedules to focus on more important meetings, while emphasizing that the decision had nothing to do with his vigilance or endurance.

“I’ve never been a big sleeper,” Trump said.

High dose of aspirin

One of the big revelations from the Journal interview was the high volume of aspirin that Trump admitted to taking.

“They say aspirin is good for thinning the blood, and I don’t want thick blood flowing through my heart,” Trump said. “I want fine, fine blood to flow through my heart.”

Daily aspirin treatment is sometimes recommended to prevent a heart attack or stroke, especially in older people.

But while the typical dose starts at about 75 mg, according to the Mayo Clinic, Trump told the Journal that he consumes about 325 mg per day, which is on the high end of the spectrum.

“They would rather I take the smaller one,” Trump said of his doctors. “I take the biggest one, but I’ve been doing it for years.”

Trump has credited the high-aspirin diet for causing easy bruising on his hands, another source of lingering public scrutiny. He explained that he put on makeup to hide when he was “hit by someone again.”

“I have makeup that, you know, is easy to put on and takes about 10 seconds,” he said, citing a past incident in which Attorney General Pam Bondi accidentally cut her hand on her ring.

Trump, an avid golfer, also confirmed to the Journal that he does not share the enthusiasm for exercise and fitness shared by cabinet members like Robert F Kennedy Jr or Pete Hegseth.

“I just don’t like it. It’s boring,” Trump said. “Walking on a treadmill or running on a treadmill for hours and hours like some people do is not for me.”

Nonetheless, last August, Trump announced that he would revive the Presidential Fitness Test – a nationwide fitness test for elementary school students – in public schools. The test was phased out in 2013 in favor of more inclusive fitness standards.

Members of the Trump administration have also been criticized for crude comments, particularly those directed at senior military leaders who have served with decoration.

At a meeting in Quantico, Virginia, in October, Hegseth told hundreds of military leaders that “it’s tiring to look at combat formations” and “see big troops,” or to walk into the Pentagon and “see big generals and admirals in the hallways.”

Presidential fitness is an increasingly pressing concern in the American political sphere, particularly since the tumult of the 2024 presidential election, which saw Biden abandon his re-election bid less than four months before the vote due to questions about his age.

During a particularly disastrous presidential debate in June 2024, Biden, then 81, appeared to have difficulty finalizing his thoughts.

Trump, who has faced similar criticism, called Biden “Sleepy Joe” on the campaign trail and continues to invoke his Democratic rival’s competence to contrast with his own.

Questions about aging presidents, however, have long been a concern as older candidates take office.

Republican Ronald Reagan faced rumors about his qualifications, notably when he ran for a second term in the 1980s. He was 77 when he left office, and in 1994 he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

But Trump has always denied feeling the ravages of age, and in Thursday’s interview he once again took the opportunity to attribute his success to his genes: “I have very good genetics.” »