Skip to main content

Doctors Think I Look "Too Young": Biden Jokes About Age After Medical Exam

President Joe Biden said his annual medical examination had gone well Wednesday, joking that doctors thought he looked too young even as scrutiny increases over the 81-year-old's age ahead of November's US election.

The White House said a summary of the test results from the Walter Reed military medical facility outside Washington would be released later in the day, with the outcome closely followed for details about America's oldest ever leader.

"They think I look too young," Biden told reporters when asked if the medical exam had raised any concerns ahead of a likely rematch with 77-year-old Donald Trump in November.

"No, there is nothing different from last year," when his exam said he was fit for duty, Biden added after an event at the White House. 

Biden took a short helicopter ride to the medical center that is often used by US presidents and left after just over two and a half hours, saluting naval staff and donning sunglasses before leaving in his motorcade.

The White House said Biden's longtime doctor Kevin O'Connor was "happy with how everything went", adding that the assessment had involved a team of 20 physicians.

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden not taking a cognitive test, saying it was the assessment of his doctors that the president did not need one.

"The president passes again a cognitive test every day," Jean-Pierre told reporters, citing the domestic and international political issues he dealt with. "This is a very rigorous job."

Biden's routine medical exam comes as voter concerns mount over the age of a leader who would be 86 at the end of a second term in office.

The issue was thrust further into the spotlight this month when a brutal special counsel report portrayed Biden as elderly and forgetful, giving ammunition to his Republican rivals.

The investigation cleared him of illegally retaining classified documents in his home and garage -- but said he would come across to a jury as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

Biden launched a fiery counterattack in a press conference at the White House, saying his memory was "fine" and slamming the special counsel for claiming he could not remember when his son Beau died of cancer.

But this week Biden took a more lighthearted tone while trying to deflect the issue back onto his septuagenarian nemesis Trump.

In an interview with late-night TV comic Seth Meyers on Monday, Biden said he was a better bet than "the other guy," who is only four years younger.

In last year's medical exam, Biden got a clean bill of health, although he did have a cancerous skin lesion removed from his chest.

"President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency," O'Connor said following Biden's medical examination in 2023.

Trump routinely depicts Biden as pathetically old, decrepit and unfit for office -- despite being nearly the same age and raising eyebrows with a series of verbal gaffes and memory issues of his own.

The real estate tycoon recently confused his rival Republican Nikki Haley with Democratic former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and said Viktor Orban was president of Turkey, rather than Hungary.

Late last year, Trump released a note from his doctor declaring him to be in "excellent" health, but it was short on details and did not say what tests Trump had undergone when he had a physical in September 2023.

The letter said the results of his cognitive exams were "exceptional" but did not disclose basic information such as Trump's height and weight, cholesterol level or blood pressure.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/N3mRhul
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Power Firm Admits It May Have Sparked Texas' Largest Wildfire Ever

A US power company admitted Thursday that its equipment may have sparked the largest wildfire in Texas' history. Xcel -- the parent of Southwest Public Service Company, which provides electricity to part of the state -- said it was working with officials investigating the cause of the blaze that charred more than a million acres (over 400,000 hectares). "Based on currently available information, Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire," the company said. Hundreds of homes are thought to have been destroyed in the fire, which is known to have killed at least two people and over 3,000 farm animals. Xcel, which is facing at least one lawsuit, denied its equipment was improperly maintained. "However, we encourage people who had property destroyed by, or livestock lost in, the Smokehouse Creek fire to submit a claim to Xcel Energy through our claims process," the statement said. The W
Post a Comment
Read more

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a
Post a Comment
Read more

All You Need To Know About Donald Trump's 1st Criminal Trial

Donald Trump goes on trial Monday for allegedly covering up hush money payments to hide affairs ahead of the 2016 presidential election which propelled him into the White House. He will become the first former US president to go on criminal trial when jury selection begins next week. Here are the key questions ahead of the landmark trial: What is Trump accused of? As Trump closed in on victory in the 2016 presidential election, adult film star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual tryst with Trump. The payments, made by Trump's lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, were revealed by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018. Prosecutors have seized on the concealment of the payments as "legal fees" in the Trump Organization's accounts when Cohen was reimbursed as the heart of their case. Prosecutors say Trump "concealed the reason for these payments... which clearly were paid in order to influence voters," former prosec
Post a Comment
Read more