Trump’s age isn’t what really has medical experts sounding the alarm – Alternet
U.S. President Donald J. Trump at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on Friday, June 5, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/Flickr)
This Sunday, June 14, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump will turn 80. Some of Trump's critics find it ironic that he is about to become an octogenarian in light of how badly he mocked former President Joe Biden as "Sleepy Joe," but according to medical experts interviewed by The Independent, Trump's age isn't a problem in itself. Those experts, however, laid out the things about Trump's health that do worry them.
Independent reporter Rhian Lubin notes that Trump is "exhibiting visible symptoms typical for an octogenarian, including bruising on his hands, swollen ankles and legs and appearing to nod off during meetings and high-profile events."
"Medical experts warn, though, that it's not so much these obvious symptoms and his age that Americans should be most concerned about, but the conduct and behavior on display during his second presidency," according to Lubin.
One of the medical experts the UK-based Independent interviewed was Dr. Henry Abraham, a psychiatry professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
Abraham told The Independent, "It's not that he's 80, but let's not ignore the red flags on the field. … If you just look at everything that he's said and done, and has been observed doing over, really, decades, certain signs and symptoms emerge which are warning flags regarding the conduct of his presidency going forward. Poor impulse control, poor control over his rage, sleeplessness at night, unrelenting aggression toward his perceived enemies. Well, put all that together and give him the nuclear football, and you can see why we're worried."
Dr. Rosanne Leipzig of New York City's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai told The Independent that she is "not overly concerned" about things like bruising on Trump's hands.
Leipzig said of the bruising, "He's taking too much aspirin, and older people's skin gets thinner. You lose the fat underneath the skin, so you're much more likely to bruise."
Leipzig, however, laid out the things about Trump that she is concerned about.
The Icahn School of Medicine told The Independent, "His medical evaluation is a somewhat superficial way of looking at whether he is competent to hold an office. I would guess that the questions people would want answered from something like this are: Is he likely to be able to live out his term? Or is he likely to have some sort of a debilitating medical problem, a major stroke, or something like that."
Leipzig continued, "I think it's pretty clear from the test that they did that physically he appears to be — if you believe everything that's in here — in reasonable shape. The stuff that I most worry about here is the mental status exam."
