Age and health concerns about Donald Trump

2017

The "Duty to Warn" movement was founded by medical professionals concerned about Trump's cognitive health in his first year in office.^[42]

In 2016 and 2017, a number of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists faced criticism for violating the Goldwater rule; despite having never examined him, they maintained that Donald Trump displayed "an assortment of personality problems, including grandiosity, a lack of empathy, and 'malignant narcissism'", and that he had a "dangerous mental illness".^[43][44][45]

In 2017, psychologist John Gartner collected more than 41,000 signatures of mental health professionals on a petition, directed to then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.^[46][47] The petition asserted that Trump suffered from a serious mental illness and was "psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties" of the presidency. Gartner asserted that Trump's mental handicaps are a mix of narcissism, paranoia, sociopathy, and sadism.^[46]

In February 2017, psychiatrist Allen Frances wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times regarding Trump and narcissistic personality disorder. Frances said, "I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn't meet them."^[48][49] According to the American Psychiatric Association, "saying that a person does not have an illness is also a professional opinion."^[50]

On April 14, 2017, Representatives Jamie Raskin and Earl Blumenauer introduced the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act.^[51] The bill, if passed, would have allowed Congress, by a concurrent resolution, to require an 11-member commission to conduct an examination of the president and report the findings.^[52][53]

In April 2017, forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee hosted a meeting at Yale University medical school regarding the ethics of discussing Trump's mental health.^[54][55] In October 2017, Lee published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, containing essays from 27 psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals on the "clear and present danger" that Trump's mental health poses to the "nation and individual well being". They argued that the president's issues affected the mental health of the United States population,^[56] and that he placed the country at grave risk of war because of his pathological traits.^[57] They asserted that Trump exhibited narcissistic personality disorder, "extreme present hedonism", and bullying.^[9] Carlos Lozada, writing for The Washington Post, considered these conclusions "compelling", but also noted that the book contributors were writing from their own political perspectives and that other mental health professionals held differing views.^[9] Lee and others contended that Trump's presidency represented an emergency allowing, or even requiring, psychiatrists to make an exception to the APA's Goldwater rule, which holds that it is unethical for members of the APA to give professional opinions about public figures without having examined them in person and without having obtained their consent.^[58][57] Proponents of such an exception have asserted that there is precedent in allowing psychiatrists to speak out when someone presents a clear and present danger.^[9]

In September 2017, Jeanne Suk Gerson wrote in The New Yorker: "A strange consensus does appear to be forming around Trump's mental state", including Democrats and Republicans who doubt Trump's fitness for office.^[57]

Also in September 2017, journalist Bill Moyers interviewed psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton and said that Trump "makes increasingly bizarre statements that are contradicted by irrefutable evidence to the contrary". Lifton replied, "He doesn't have clear contact with reality, though I'm not sure it qualifies as a bona fide delusion." As an example, Lifton said, when Trump claimed that former president Barack Obama was born in Kenya, "he was manipulating that lie as well as undoubtedly believing it in part."^[59]

In September 2017, psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman published an article commenting on Donald Trump's mental health. He said that, in accordance with the Goldwater rule, no diagnosis should be made of public figures, but also stated that assessing the president's fitness for government should not be left to politicians alone. He arrived at a diagnosis of "incipient dementia",^[60] but faced no sanctions from the APA.^[61]

2018

In 2018, Trump dismissed then-prevalent questions regarding his mental health, stating that he is a "very stable genius".^[62] As evidence of his mental capacities, he pointed to his business success, his victory over Republican competitors, and his election to the presidency against Hillary Clinton.^[63] Trump has also disputed claims he couldn't remember the name of a fallen soldier while talking to the widow, stating he has "one of the great memories of all time".^[64]

In January 2018, Trump was examined by White House physician Ronny Jackson, who stated that he was in excellent health, although his weight and cholesterol level were higher than recommended,^[24] and that his cardiac assessment revealed no medical issues.^[65] Several independent cardiologists commented that Trump's weight, lifestyle, and LDL cholesterol ought to have raised serious concerns about his cardiac health.^[66] Trump's 2018 coronary CT calcium scan score indicates he has a form of heart disease called coronary artery disease, which is common for white males at his age.^[67]

In January 2018, after North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and Trump publicly exchanged claims about their respective "nuclear buttons", Richard Painter, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, deemed Trump "psychologically unfit" and supported transferring his powers to Vice President Mike Pence under the 25th Amendment.^[62] In April 2018, Vanity Fair reported that Trump's advisers "worry about his mental health" when he is outside the controls available in the White House environment.^[69]

In response to speculation about his cognitive abilities, Trump voluntarily took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as part of his January 2018 health checkup. He reported receiving a score of 30/30, indicating a normal level of cognitive function, although the results have not been released.^[2] Critics have contended that the MoCA test is too basic to diagnose the problems asserted.^[70][71] Trump used the phrase "person, woman, man, camera, TV" several times during a July 2020 Fox News interview with Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University,^[72][73] while describing part of the 2018 MoCA test and praising his own performance on it.^[74] Trump has not publicly revealed the results of any subsequent cognitive tests but, as late as 2024, continued to praise his performance in the 2018 cognitive test.^[75] Ziad Nasreddine, the neurologist who created the test, noted that 2018 results would be too outdated to be relevant in 2024.^[2]

2019

An academic consensus across multiple studies was made in 2019, characterizing Trump as having "very high extraversion, very low agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability, and sky-high narcissism".^[76]

In 2019, amid continued speculation, the American Psychiatric Association and Alzheimer's Society requested that professionals other than Trump's doctors adhere to the Goldwater rule and refrain from giving armchair diagnoses of Trump.^[77][78] A growing number of individuals in academia have continued to call for a relaxation of the Goldwater rule.^[76]

In February 2019, Trump was examined by White House physician Sean Conley. Conley stated Trump was in "very good health overall", although Trump was now slightly clinically obese, at 243 pounds (110 kg) with a BMI of 30.4.^[79]

In a July 4, 2019, speech, Trump said that during the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army "took over the airports" from the British (airplanes were not invented until 1903, 120 years after the war ended).^[80]

2020

Clinical psychologist Mary L. Trump, who is Trump's niece, published a book in 2020 identifying the disorders she believed him to have.^[4][81]

Trump appeared unsteady while walking down a ramp at the United States Air Force Academy on June 15, 2020. He also had difficulty raising a glass of water to his mouth. These episodes raised questions about his health.^[82]

On September 26, 2020, an event was held in the White House Rose Garden announcing Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.^[83] According to a 2021 book by Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, hours after the ceremony, Trump tested positive for COVID-19, although a subsequent test returned negative. Meadows recalled that Trump looked "a little tired" and was suspected of having a "slight cold".^[84]

Trump later traveled in Air Force One to a rally at the Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania, which was attended by thousands.^[85] After Trump's diagnosis was made public, Pennsylvania health officials advised attendees to participate in the state's contact tracing program.^[86]

After returning from Bedminster, Trump received a positive test result^[87] on a rapid test and was waiting to get results of a PCR test when he did a live phone interview on Hannity.^[88] On October 2, 2020, Trump tweeted that he and his wife Melania Trump had both tested positive for COVID-19,^[88] part of a White House outbreak.^[89][90] Later that day, Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center,^[91] reportedly due to fever and labored breathing. He was treated with antivirals, an experimental antibody drug (REGN-COV2^[92]), and a steroid. He returned to the White House on October 5, still infectious and unwell.^[89][93] In 2021, it was revealed that his condition had been far more serious than he had previously indicated; he had dangerously low blood oxygen levels, a high fever, and lung infiltrates, indicating a severe case of COVID-19.^[93]

2021–2023

In 2022, MSNBC described Trump as "notoriously secretive about sharing his health records with the public" and "deliberately misleading and even dishonest about his health".^[12]

In an incident in October 2023, Trump referred to Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán as "the leader of Turkey", and said that Orbán shares a border with Russia, which neither Turkey nor Hungary does.^[94]

2024

During his 2024 campaign, polls generally showed that a majority of Americans believed that Trump was too old to serve as president.^[4] A February 2024 Ipsos poll finding that Joe Biden's age and health were major or moderate concerns for 86% of voters also found that 59% similarly thought Trump was too old to hold the office.^[11]

During the course of the 2024 primary campaign, Trump made several gaffes, including confusing Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi, claiming he was running against Barack Obama (the Democratic candidate at the time was Joe Biden), and fearing the nation may enter World War II.^[95]

A shift in Trump's speeches by 2024 towards shorter sentences, more tangents, more repetition, more all-or-nothing thinking, and more confusion of words and phrases could indicate cognitive decline.^{[30][8][96][2]} Basil Smikle of Columbia University argued in January 2024 that one reason Trump has not seen as much of the age criticism as Biden is that his rallies seem loud and vibrant, whereas Biden has a more old-school approach to politics.^[42]

In January 2024, Dr. Jay Olshansky gave Donald Trump less than a 75% chance of living through a second term based on publicly available information about his health.^[97][98] Also in January 2024, red spots or sores were spotted on Donald Trump's hands.^[99][100]

On June 14, 2024, Trump said that his longtime acquaintance Joan Rivers had told him that she had voted for him in the 2016 election, although Rivers had died in September 2014.^[101]

A few days later, on June 16, 2024, while praising his own performance on a cognitive test administered in 2018, Trump "confused the name of his former White House physician" who had administered the test.^[75]

A July 2024 poll, taken shortly after the first presidential debate, found that 60% of voters saw Trump as too old for a second term.^[1] This represented a steady and constant increase in voters polled by this pollster sharing this concern, and paralleled the progression of the larger number of voters who had the same concern about Biden.^[1]

On July 13, 2024, Trump survived an assassination attempt while addressing a campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.^[102] Trump was shot at^[103] by Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania,^[104][105] who fired eight rounds with an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a building located approximately 400 feet (120 meters) from the stage.

According to the FBI, Trump was hit by a bullet,^[106] and injured in his upper right ear.^[107] He raised a hand to his ear before dropping down on his podium behind the lectern for cover.^{[108][109][110][111]} Secret Service agents lunged toward Trump and shielded him. After the assailant was declared "down", agents helped Trump get up. Blood was visible on his ear and face. He asked the Secret Service agents to let him get his shoes.^[112] According to Trump, the agents "hit me so hard that my shoes fell off, and my shoes are tight."^[113] As of October 12, 2024, none of the medical records pertaining to his wounds had been released.^[114]

In July 2024, psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones of Trinity College Dublin said in The Conversation that "the potential effect of the attempted assassination of Trump upon Trump's mental health – whether negligible, negative or positive – cannot be ignored". McCarthy-Jones stated that Trump being an extrovert might improve his ability to deal with the psychological impact of the event. However, he also asserted that "other personality traits, including low agreeableness, low conscientiousness and low emotional stability, also attributed to Trump, are associated with greater levels of PTSD", as are "high levels of narcissism", which can also "cause people to react to even limited threats with aggression".^[115] On July 22, 2024, the Washington Post reported interviews with medical experts who believed Trump likely has an elevated genetic risk of dementia.^[2] Nephew Fred Trump III said that he sees signs of the dementia that he saw in Trump's father, Fred Trump Sr.,^[8] who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in October 1991, at the age of 86, eight years before he died.^[8]

In August 2024, Gabriel Sherman reported in Vanity Fair suggestions that Trump was in fact "experiencing trauma from his near-death experience"; a campaign insider reportedly claimed that Trump was "watching that seven-second clip of how close he was to getting shot right in the head – over and over and over again".^[116]

An August 2024 Morning Consult poll found that the number of respondents who thought Trump was too old to run jumped by seven percent, to 51%, from their previous poll once Trump's opponent changed from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, and the number of respondents who thought Trump was in good health correspondingly fell by six percent.^[117][118] The poll further reported that nearly 80% of respondents "were unsure he'd be up for serving a full second term".^[117] A Marquette University poll released the same day reported that 57% of respondents felt that Trump was too old.^[96]

In September 2024, Trump said the audience "went crazy" for him at the presidential debate the preceding week, although the debate had no audience.^[119][4]

On October 6, 2024, The New York Times reported that Trump had maintained a far less active campaign schedule in 2024 than in 2016; the report added that Trump had held only 61 rallies through 2024, compared with 283 in all of 2016. In this same report, they analyzed Trump's speeches, writing, "with the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president's speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years." The paper commented that Trump has lately seemed "confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality" but that it does not get covered much because it is so common. It highlighted an average rally length of 82 minutes compared with 45 minutes in 2016, and a 13% increase in the use of all-or-nothing terms such as "always" and "never". It also found 32% more negative words than positive words compared with 21% in 2016, and a 69% increase in swear words. It cited experts who considered this increase in tangential speech and behavioral disinhibition the potential result of advancing age and cognitive decline.^[4]

As of October 12, 2024, Trump had declined to release health information going back to 2015 when he first started running for president, despite a promise he made in August 2024 to release records from a recent examination.^[13][14] Releasing detailed medical reports is typical of presidential candidates.^[15]

2025

Between December 2024 and March 2025, bruises were spotted on multiple occasions on Trump's hands, which generated speculation about his health.^{[120][121][122]}

On April 13, 2025, three months after Trump's second inauguration, the White House released the results of his physical examination conducted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center by White House Physician Dr. Sean Barbabella.^[123][124] The neurological exam included the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test (MoCA).^[123] The report revealed that Trump had at one time had cataract surgery. His reported height was 6 feet 3 inches (1.90 m) and his weight was 224 pounds (102 kg). It mentioned scarring on his right ear from a bullet wound and his "frequent victories in golf events".^[125]

In July 2025, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, stated that Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. Trump's physician, Dr. Barbabella, wrote in a statement that bruising on Trump's right hand was attributed to his use of aspirin and frequent hand-shaking.^[126] It was later noted, however, that vascular tests confirmed that Trump in fact had swelling in his legs at the time of his diagnosis.^[127] Large bruises continued to appear on Trump's hands in August 2025.^[128]

On August 27, 2025, Vice President JD Vance stated that he was ready to become president; this led to speculation that Trump was seriously ill or dead.^{[129][130][131]} That day, he was seen leaving for golf,^[132][133] but a photo which Trump shared of himself on August 31 was determined to have potentially been taken on August 23, fueling further speculation of continuing health concerns.^{[134][135][136]} Increased discussion about his mental health occurred in August.^[137] A photograph of Trump leaving the White House on September 1 confirmed he was still alive, but led to more speculation about his health due to seeming changes in his appearance.^[138] Theories alleging that Trump suffered an ischemic stroke grew following the photos' release; Trump disputed suggestions that he suffered ill health, asserting that he "never felt better in [his] life" in an all-caps Truth Social post.^[139] On September 11, during a 9/11 commemoration at the Pentagon, the right side of Trump's face was said to droop down heavily, once again sparking concerns of a stroke.^[140]

On October 10, Trump received another visit to Walter Reed. Leavitt described the visit as a "routine yearly checkup", despite it being Trump's second at the facility in a six-month-period.^[143][144] Dr. Barbabella did not elaborate on the imaging or "preventive assessments" that he performed, but added that Trump's laboratory results were "exceptional," and that his cardiac age is "approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age."^[145]

On October 27, Trump told reporters that he had undergone an undisclosed MRI scan during a previous visit to Walter Reed, which, despite his claim that it gave "some of the best reports for the age" and "some of the best reports they've ever seen", led to further speculation about his health due to the undisclosed nature of why he had the procedure done.^[146] Trump also bragged about his taking of the MoCA test, again misidentifying the screening assessment for detecting cognitive impairment as a "very hard [...] IQ test" and claiming that younger Democratic political opponents do not have the intelligence to pass it.^[145][147] Whether a third MoCA test was conducted during the October visit or if Trump was referring to his April 2025 and/or January 2018 assessments was not clarified.^[145]

On October 28, new concerns about Trump's mental state emerged when a video emerged of him wandering off while walking alongside Sanae Takaichi, the first female prime minister of Japan, while at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Japan.^[148]

On November 2, Simon Tisdall alleged in The Guardian that "the first signs of the battle over Trump's succession" were now showing, stating that Trump's Vice President J.D. Vance will be "President JD Vance" by the time of the 2028 U.S. presidential election, and describing "President JD Vance or Marco Rubio" as the current frontrunners to run for the Republican nomination in 2028.^[149]

On December 2, Trump appeared to fall asleep during a Cabinet meeting, which prompted additional concerns over his health.^[150] California representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove speculated in response that Trump was taking Leqembi, used to treat Alzheimer's, stating that his MRI, hand bruises, and apparent drowsiness aligned with the drug's side effects.^[151]

2026

On January 1, 2026, The Daily Beast described Trump as "sick and sleepy," noting his recent history of dozing during public appearances and a recent report revealing how he was requesting to now attend "fewer, more important meetings.^[152] Trump would also concede in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he was now taking a larger dosage of aspirin and ignoring medical advice.^[153][154]

United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described Trump's diet as "unhinged" and highly unhealthy in a January interview. Kennedy claimed the president ate high-price premium meals when living at Mar-a-Lago or the White House, but switched to a heavy diet of fast food and candy when travelling. The president apparently had a preference for McDonald's and other major American chains, as he considered corporate restaurants more trustworthy. Kennedy concluded that Trump would need an inhuman constitution to maintain such a lifestyle, stating "I don't know how he's alive, but he is".^[17]

The Greenland Crisis has brought particular attention to Trump's fitness and stability regarding his international conduct. Following the publicizing of the "Dear Jonas" letter, in which Trump demanded "complete and total control of Greenland" and cited his perceived snub of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize as a deciding factor in his escalation of the crisis, Democratic lawmakers widely questioned Trump's mental fitness for office. Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey described it as "unhinged and embarrassing", and Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, as "the ramblings of a man who has lost touch with reality".^[155] Vin Gupta, the medical analyst for NBC News, said the letter "crossed a line of proper adult behavior" and should have had a "more thorough public assessment of his neurological fitness," stating that Trump's behavior including his letter to Støre could be signs of early Alzheimer's or frontotemporal dementia.^[156]

On January 22, 2026, Trump spoke before world leaders at a summit in Davos, and photographers captured photos of him with a large bruise on his left hand, unlike the bruise on his other hand, which the administration had to address publicly. Trump has publicly attributed the bruising to shaking hands, but he is accustomed to using his right hand, not his left.^[157]

On January 29, 2026, shortly after the signing of Executive Order 14379^[ws] "Addressing Addiction through the Great American Recovery Initiative", Trump and his cabinet dismissed news reporters from the Oval Office without an interview. Some social media users, including Rebekah Jones, speculated that the press conference ended abruptly due to Trump defecating himself.^[158][159] These accusations cited an unidentified sound and apparent reactions from Pam Bondi and Doug Burgum's wife Kathryn heard and seen in Forbes's live coverage. In correspondence with Snopes, White House spokesman Steven Cheung denied the rumor that Trump had defecated at the event.^[158]

On March 2, Trump was photographed with a dark red rash on his neck.^[160] Trump's physician Sean Barbabella issued a statement saying that the president was using a medicated cream as a “preventative” treatment of the skin condition which was expected to last "a few weeks"; he did not explain the skin condition or disclose what the medication was.^[161]

On March 12, during at a White House gathering for Women's History Month, Trump referred to his current White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as "Kellyanne," appearing to mistake her for the former senior counselor from his first presidency Kellyanne Conway.^[162][163]