(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement from her doctor saying she’s in “excellent health,” as her campaign seeks to raise doubts about whether Donald Trump is medically fit to serve.
Harris “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,” her physician, Joshua R. Simmons, said in the statement, which offered detailed information on her blood pressure, blood work and seasonal allergies.
The 59-year-old eats a “very healthy diet” and maintains a healthy, active lifestyle, according to Saturday’s statement. Her most recent physical exam in April was “unremarkable,” Simmons added.
He disclosed that Harris had been undergoing allergen immunotherapy for the past three years, which has helped her seasonal allergy symptoms improve and means she no longer requires medication apart from occasional drugs for rhinitis.
By publishing details of Harris’ medical history, her campaign is keeping with a longstanding practice for nominees of both parties, including Trump during his presidency and previous White House bids. Trump, 78, told CBS News in August that he would “very gladly” release his medical records but has since declined media requests to do so.
‘Excellent Health’
The Trump campaign said later Saturday that Trump has voluntarily released health updates from his personal physician, as well as a letter from former White House physician Ronny Jackson, now a Texas Republican congressman, after the assassination attempt on Trump in July. “All have concluded he is in perfect and excellent health to be commander in chief,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, who didn’t say whether Trump would release detailed medical records.
After fending off the Republican nominee’s attacks on President Joe Biden’s age and mental acuity before Biden abandoned his bid for re-election, some Democrats are now raising similar questions about Trump.
Trump’s intellectual faculties seem to have declined since his first White House campaign, which was launched in 2015, to the point where he’s now “incoherent,” former Obama White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said last week on the Pod Save America podcast.
If elected, Trump would by the end of his term be the oldest person to ever serve as president, edging out Biden, who’ll turn 82 in November, by a few months. Trump released a doctor’s note last year — on Biden’s 81st birthday — stating that he was in “excellent health,” with physical exams in the normal range and cognitive exams that were “exceptional.” It included no data supporting those claims. The campaign’s Saturday statement included a link to the same note.
In 2018, while Trump was serving as president, a medical report showed that he had a common type of heart disease that could be kept at bay by increasing his dosage of a cholesterol-lowering medication. Documents released over the next two years of his administration showed that his cholesterol levels had dramatically improved.
While he was in office, Trump’s reported weight hovered at the low end of what is characterized as obese for his height, though his physician said last year that he had lost weight.
(Updates with Trump statement in sixth paragraph.)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.