As Joe Biden celebrated his birthday on Monday with a cake that could have burned down the White House, many political commentators marked the occasion by pointing out that 81 is pretty damn old. If reelected, the president will be even older when he starts his second term in January 2025. But it’s not like voters have much of a choice. 2024 Republican front-runner Donald Trump is less than four years younger than Biden, though his decrepitude often goes unnoticed.
“He is often mocked for his heavy orange makeup, his hair dye, and the elaborate nest of hair he constructs atop his head, but those embellishments have also done their job, making him look less old than he might otherwise,” David A. Graham noted in The Atlantic.
But according to Trump, the discrepancy between his perceived age and Biden’s isn’t all cosmetic; he’s just incredibly healthy and svelte for a 77-year-old. How do we know? Because on Biden’s birthday Trump posted this letter to Truth Social, in which his doctor describes his health as “excellent” twice in three paragraphs:
Still confused about how Dr. Aronwald reached this conclusion? Well, it’s all right there in the letter. He conducted both “physical exams” and “cognitive exams” of Trump. What kind, specifically? “Several,” and rest assured: They were “comprehensive.” He also did “extensive laboratory analysis,” which came back “within normal limits.” You know what? Scratch that — these mystery labs weren’t just normal, they were “even more favorable than prior testing in some of the most significant parameters.” Which parameters? It’s not important. But the difference was probably due to Trump’s “weight reduction.”
Trump was widely mocked in August when he was booked at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail and an aide reported his height and weight as six feet, three inches tall and 215 pounds — suggesting he’d lost 24 pounds since a White House physician clocked him at 239 pounds in 2018. So is Dr. Aronwald saying Trump’s lost even more weight in the past three months? It’s unclear. But Trump definitely isn’t “cheating” by taking Ozempic; the doctor said Trump’s weight loss secret is “an improved diet and continued daily physical activity.”
So there you have it: Trump is just as fit as he was back in 2016, when he dictated a letter to his longtime physician Dr. Harold Bornstein (R.I.P.) declaring that he’d be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
