Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments. In 2024, Trump was already showing signs of cognitive decline. It's getting worse.
Annie Linskey, Josh Dawsey, and Meridith McGraw at WSJ:
President Trump is taking more aspirin than his doctors recommend. He briefly tried wearing compression socks for his swelling ankles, but stopped because he didn’t like them. And he regrets undergoing advanced imaging because it generated scrutiny of his health.
“In retrospect, it’s too bad I took it because it gave them a little ammunition,” Trump said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on his decision to get a cardiovascular and abdominal scan in October. “I would have been a lot better off if they didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”
Trump, 79, the oldest man to assume the presidency, is showing signs of aging in public and private, according to people close to him. Yet he has at times eschewed the advice of his doctors and scoffed at the medical community’s widely accepted health recommendations, relying instead on what he calls his “good genetics.” Trump and his doctor say he is in excellent health, and aides say he maintains a vigorous schedule.
Trump gets little sleep and has recently struggled to keep his eyes open during several televised events in the West Wing. Aides, donors and friends say they often have to speak loudly in meetings with the president because he strains to hear. Aside from golf, Trump doesn’t get regular exercise, and he is known to consume a diet heavy on salty and fatty foods, such as hamburgers and french fries.
The large dose of aspirin he chooses to take daily has caused him to bruise easily, he said, and he has been encouraged by his doctors to take a lower dose. But Trump has declined to switch because he has been taking it for 25 years. “I’m a little superstitious,” he said in the interview.
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Trump said he had plenty of energy, which he credited to his parents, who he said were energetic until their old age.
“Genetics are very important,” he said. “And I have very good genetics.”
Interesting that this story on Trump’s aging omits previous reporting (by Wash Post) of Alzheimer’s/dementia of Trump’s father. Trump brags about his “genes” so often. https://t.co/DhquefOli8
— Barbara Comstock (@BarbaraComstock) January 1, 2026
