WASHINGTON – More than 200 doctors and nurses are calling on former President Donald Trump to release his medical records, citing concerns over his age and fitness for office as he campaigns for a potential second term that would make the 78-year-old the oldest president-elect in history.
So far, Trump has resisted their pressure.
Dr. Ezekiel Tayler, a critical-care physician from Pennsylvania, was among the 238 signatories of a letter from Doctors for Harris, an independent grassroots organization that is not affiliated with the Harris-Walz campaign. He said he signed the letter because he believes anyone running for America’s highest office has a responsibility to be upfront with voters.
“I think what Donald Trump has done is normalize a lack of transparency, saying: ‘I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it, and if you don’t like it, well, I am who I am’ and that’s not appropriate,” Tayler said.
The letter, which was dated Oct. 13, noted that without a disclosure of health data, doctors and voters are forced to draw conclusions from Trump’s behavior during public appearances. They said that in that regard, “Trump is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office and displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity.”
Trump’s history of health disclosure controversy
When Hillary Clinton’s campaign published her detailed medical report over a year before the 2016 election, Trump faced pressure to follow suit.
In a December 2015 tweet, he said he’d release a full medical report that would “show perfection.”
Ten days later, his personal doctor issued a four-paragraph letter that included no specific health statistics, but claimed that Trump “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” It was later revealed that Trump had dictated this letter and his doctor simply signed it.
In 2020, Trump tested positive for COVID-19 after Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation on September 26 but waited until October 2—three days after a presidential debate with Joe Biden—to announce it. This detail came to light a year later after Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, published it in his 2021 book.
Health concerns grow ahead of the election
Now, in lieu of publishing an updated medical report, as Trump promised he would do in an August 2024 interview, his campaign issued a statement citing two July memos from former White House physician and current Texas congressman Dr. Ronny Jackson, who treated the former president after he was shot in an assassination attempt this summer, as proof that Trump is fit for office.
“I want to receive a solid health report, not from the doctor who examined him last time—who had his own issues—but from a respected physician, so I can comprehend what is happening with him,” said Pat Ford-Roegner, a nurse practitioner and member of Nurses for America, a group that started working with Doctors for Harris earlier this year.
Ford-Roegner said that she believed the “level of anger” Trump is displaying in his recent public appearances is the most alarming aspect of his behavior. The Doctors for Harris letter cited similar worries.
“As we age, we lose our sharpness and return to basic instincts. We are witnessing this with Trump, as he utilizes his rallies and appearances to ramble, meander, and crudely lash out at his numerous perceived grievances,” the doctors wrote. They pointed to his recent claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio as a specific example.
In the week after the letter, Trump took the stage at a town hall in Pennsylvania, where he danced and swayed to his personal playlist for nearly 40 minutes after abruptly ending the Q&A portion of the event. Dr. Mark Lopatin, a retired rheumatologist who also signed the letter, highlighted this as another cause for concern.
“The public deserves to know what’s going on,” Lopatin said. “So I think anytime someone is not being transparent we should call that out.”
