Trump’s disclosure raised fresh questions about the secrecy surrounding his health and the need for presidents to be more transparent.
Trump’s medical history has been marked with secrecy, and critics have long accused him of trying to hide the true details of his health behind bluster.
Asked about the scan on Tuesday and why the public doesn’t have more information, press secretary Karoline Leavitt dodged the question.
“I will check back on that. But as you all know because you are all witness to it, every single day the president is in optimal physical health,” she said.
Trump is the oldest person to be elected president, and his aides and allies have long projected him as the picture of strength and vitality.
It’s not unusual for an administration to be reticent about sharing a president’s personal health information, and there’s no legal requirement for an administration to be transparent about it.
Presidents throughout history have lied, deceived and covered up various ailments, and experts note there’s a tension between what a president wants to disclose and what the American people have a vested interest in knowing.
Jacob Appel, a psychiatry professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a presidential health historian, said the selective release of information, or filtering information through political spin, doesn’t serve the public interest.
“I think if you’re going to release some information, you want to release enough information that the public at least can put it into context. If you’re going to say that you’re having an MRI, we should know what the MRI is for,” Appel said.
“We don’t know what the MRI was for, because the President hasn’t even told us what body part was [scanned] … an MRI could be something to check for a cognitive issue. It could be something to check for a heart issue. It could be the president twisted an ankle and they’re afraid that he is a bone fracture. So it could be almost anything,” Appel said.
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