The issue of Donald Trump’s personal health was already one of the stranger stories of the 2016 presidential race, as Rachel explained at the top of last night’s show. This morning, however, the story got even stranger.
Yesterday, however, we were told Trump would discuss the results of last week’s physical on Dr. Oz’s television show — a curious choice given Oz’s controversial background and a reversal from the campaign’s previous position — as part of what the host described yesterday as a “no-holds-barred conversation.” Oz added, however, that Trump would control the release of the information and the host wouldn’t ask any questions that the candidate “doesn’t want to have answered.”
On a related note, Oz conceded he would do this interview despite having no direct communications with the doctor who actually did the physical exam.
This morning, the Trump campaign said the entire plan had been changed and the candidate wouldn’t release any medical records through Dr. Oz’s show. The GOP candidate would have a conversation about general well-being, but Americans would have to wait for specific information related to Trump.
A couple of hours later, the plan changed again.
After a whiplash-inducing morning of mixed messages, Donald J. Trump on Wednesday gave a small window into some of the results from his most recent physical examination in a taped appearance with the television celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz.The quick run-through of results, which Mr. Trump is said to have given to the doctor to read from a piece of paper, came after the Republican presidential nominee’s aides had said he would, and then that he wouldn’t, broach the topic with the celebrity doctor on the “Dr. Oz Show.”
According to CNN’s report, Trump’s “surprise” disclosure was “a one-page summary of the physical exam he underwent last week.” The physical, the CNN piece added, was conducted by — wait for it — Dr. Harold Bornstein.
Yes, that’s the same quirky gastroenterologist who wrote the ridiculous letter about Trump’s “astonishingly excellent” health.
We don’t yet have additional details about exactly what was said on the syndicated program because it was taped this morning for broadcast tomorrow.
All of this, incidentally, comes against a backdrop in which Trump was intensely interested in Hillary Clinton’s health, right up until she got pneumonia, at which point Trump curiously changed the subject and his campaign manager began emphasizing the importance of medical privacy.
In an election filled with strange spectacles, can anything top Trump’s bizarre handling of his personal medical information?
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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."