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It’s been a couple of months since Donald Trump promised to release his medical records to the public. It’s a vow the former president has not kept — which is problematic for a variety of reasons.
The New York Times recently reported, for example, that the Republican, if re-elected, would become “the oldest person ever to serve as president,” and he “could enter the Oval Office with an array of potentially worrisome issues, medical experts say: cardiac risk factors, possible aftereffects from the July assassination attempt and the cognitive decline that naturally comes with age, among others.”
Given the fact that the GOP candidate has spent much of the past decade hiding information about his health, the fact that he said he’d release his medical records, only to reverse course without explanation, fuels concerns.
But what about his Democratic rival? As it turns out, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to show a commitment to transparency that her opponent has rejected. NBC News reported:
Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday released a summary of her medical records from her White House physician, who deemed her to be “a healthy 59-year-old female who has a medical history notable for seasonal allergies and urticaria.”
The physician, Joshua Simmons, wrote that the vice president eats a healthy diet and engages in regular daily aerobics and core strength training. “She possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” the vice president’s doctor concluded.
NBC News’ report went on to note that, according to her physician, Harris’ last medical exam in April was “unremarkable” and that all of her routine exams and bloodwork were “normal.”
Such disclosures are supposed to be a routine part of the process, and they were commonplace before Trump decided to reject American political norms.
It’s against this backdrop that Harris is taking the opportunity to initiate a larger conversation rooted in an unstated question: What is Trump hiding?
In a newly released interview with Roland Martin, for example, the Democratic nominee said, in reference to her 2024 rival, “His staff won’t let him do a ‘60 Minutes’ interview. Every president for the last half century has done one — anyone who’s running for president. Everyone has done it except Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put out my medical records, he won’t put out his medical records.
“And you have to ask: Why is his staff doing that? And it may be because they think he’s just not ready, and unfit, and unstable, and should not have that level of transparency for the American people. There’s a real choice in this election.”
She’s been pushing this line quite a bit in recent days, including a campaign event over the weekend in which Harris asked whether members of Team Trump are rejecting transparency because they fear he’ll be seen as “too weak and unstable to lead.”
I won’t speculate about Trump’s motivations, but there can be no doubt that the former president is at a disadvantage when it comes to transparency. He refuses to release his medical records; he refuses to release his tax returns; he has refused to provide recent accounting related to his foreign customers; he refused while in office to disclose White House visitor logs; and he’s even pursuing a post-election transition process that allows him to keep his donors secret.
In September 2020, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin argued, “President Trump is the most transparent president in history.” It was ridiculous at the time. It’s worse now.