In early October, Donald Trump went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for his second physical of the year. Soon after, an official White House summary released to news organizations noted that the president had undergone “advanced imaging” as part of that visit.
This one detail, mentioned in passing, generated some reasonable follow-up questions: Did Trump get an MRI? If so, why?
A week after the medical exam, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt conceded that she didn’t know why this specific test was ordered. A week after that, the president himself acknowledged during a brief Q&A with reporters that he’d undergone magnetic resonance imaging, but he declined to say why his doctors had ordered the scan.
The issue continued to linger in the background for a while. On Nov. 4, Leavitt boasted about Trump’s “optimal physical health,” though she didn’t know the reason for his MRI. On Nov. 12, the press secretary again insisted that the president is in “exceptional physical health,” adding that the MRI results were reviewed by “radiologists and consultants,” but she offered no additional details.
Then on Friday night aboard Air Force One, en route to Mar-a-Lago, Trump provided a bit more of his medical insight.
After telling reporters that an MRI is a “very standard” part of his annual physical, he went on to say, “I had an MRI. The doctor said it was the best result he has ever seen as a doctor. … The result was outstanding.”
Asked whether the MRI was on his brain, Trump replied, “I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well. And they said that I had as good a result as they’ve ever seen.” It’s entirely possible there’s nothing to this story; but given Trump’s unfortunate record, he hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt on questions of medical transparency. What’s more, Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for MS NOW, explained online, “Even if you are leader of the free world, you don’t just get an MRI without a clear reason to do so. There’s no such thing as a ‘screening’ MRI.” That Trump has said he has “no idea” what the MRI was for doesn’t exactly resolve the underlying questions about what happened or why. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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