President Trump’s niece has suggested her uncle could be suffering from Alzheimer’s based on a “deer-in-the-headlights” expression that reminds her of the president’s father.
Mary Trump, a longtime critic of her uncle, said she saw flashes in him of Fred Trump, her grandfather, who she witnessed struggle with the degenerative disease before his death aged 93 in 1999.
“Sometimes it does not seem like he’s oriented to time and place,” Mary Trump, 60, told New York Magazine of her uncle. “And on occasion, I do see that deer-in-the-headlights look.”
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The president himself addressed his father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis in an interview with the outlet, saying: “He had one problem. At a certain age, about 86, 87, he started getting, what do they call it?”
His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, found the word for him.
“Like an Alzheimer’s thing,” Trump said. “Well, I don’t have it.”
Trump with his parents, Mary and Fred, in 1992
JUDIE BURSTEIN/GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMA/ALAMY
Mary Trump, the president’s niece
DOMINIK BINDL/GETTY IMAGES
Asked if he thinks about the family history, Trump said: “No, I don’t think about it at all. You know why? Because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever.”
The president, who turns 80 this year, has consistently maintained that his health is “perfect”. However, he continues to face speculation about his condition after sightings of visible bruising on his hands, swelling in his legs and ankles and incidents where he has appeared to fall asleep during public events.
Trump has said that the bruising is a result of the 325 milligrams of aspirin he takes daily. His doctors do not approve of the dosage, he told New York Magazine, “but it works for me”.
“I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and I don’t want to change,” he said. “You know what? You’re in the Oval Office now, right? I don’t want to change a thing.”
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Trump takes the higher dose because he wants “real thin blood”, he said. “They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart,” he told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. “I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
Aides have also denied that the president has fallen asleep during events, including on one occasion during a two-hour cabinet meeting in December. Leavitt said that he was merely “actively listening”.
“He’s working harder now than he did in his entire life,” she added. “Even in real estate when he was on top of the world in New York.”
Will Scharf, the White House staffing secretary, said that Trump was “always awake, always alert”.
“It’s not dozing. Sometimes if he’s thinking about something — and I made that mistake at first too — he adopts a pose. He leans back or leans forward a little bit, and he either closes his eyes or looks down, because he often takes notes in his lap,” he said.
The president appears to nod off during a cabinet meeting last month
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
But Trump has given a different explanation for shutting his eyes, claiming the meeting was “boring as hell”.
“I’m going around a room, and I’ve got 28 guys — the last one was three-and-a-half hours. I have to sit back and listen, and I move my hand so that people will know I’m listening. I’m hearing every word, and I can’t wait to get out.”
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Senior Trump administration figures have repeatedly defended the president’s health in recent weeks.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, described him as “too healthy” and “too active”, while Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said “he can work harder and he has a better memory and he has more stamina and has more energy than a normal mortal”.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, said Trump had “incredible health” and that Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, had looked at his medical records and found that he had “the highest testosterone level that he’s ever seen for an individual over 70 years old”.