President Donald Trump speaks during an event on energy production in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2025-04-11T04:01:03Z WASHINGTON (AP) Donald Trump is undergoing his annual physical on Friday, potentially giving the public its first details in years about the health of a man who in January became the oldest in U.S. history to be sworn in as president. I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done! Trump, 78, posted on his social media site.Despite long questioning predecessor Joe Biden s physical and mental capacity, Trump himself has routinely kept basic facts about his own health shrouded in secrecy shying away from traditional presidential transparency on medical issues. If history is any indication, his latest physical is likely to produce a flattering report thats scarce on details. It will be conducted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will be the first public information on Trumps health since an assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July. Rather than release medical records at that time, Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson a staunch supporter who served as his White House physician and once joked in the White House briefing room that Trump could live to be 200 if he had a healthier diet wrote a memo describing a gunshot wound to Trumps right ear. In a subsequent interview with CBS last August, Trump said hed very gladly release his medical records but never did. Trump is three years younger than Biden. But on Inauguration Day of his second term in January, Trump was five months older than Biden was during his 2021 inauguration making Trump the nations oldest president to be sworn into office. Before Jacksons memo, Americans hadnt seen key details about Trumps health since November 2023, when Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald released a letter to coincide with Bidens 81st birthday, saying Trump was in excellent physical and mental health.The letter, posted on Trumps social media platform, contained no details including Trumps weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, or the results of any test. Instead, Aronwlad wrote that hed examined Trump that fall and found his physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional, while also noting that Trump had reduced his weight. Trump was treated at Walter Reed for his serious bout with the coronavirus in 2020. During that, Trumps physician offered a rosy prognosis on his condition, though his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said some of Trumps vital signs were very concerning.After he recovered, more details emerged that Trump had been sicker than hed let on. But Trump largely refused to say more about his health at the time, instead submitting to a pretaped, remote medical evaluation and interview on Fox News Channel. That was conducted by Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor who had questioned Hillary Clintons physical ability to serve as president in 2016 and later urged the Biden White House to test the then-presidents cognitive acuity. In November 2019, meanwhile, Trumps trip to Walter Reed for a physical was omitted from his public schedule, breaking the White House protocol of giving advance public notice of them. The visit was revealed three days later, with Trump disclosing that hed had a very routine physical. The White House released a subsequent statement from the presidents then-personal physician, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, saying it had been a planned interim checkup kept off the record due to scheduling uncertainties.Arguably, Trumps most famous past comments about his own health came during a television interview in July 2020, when he listed off Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV while attempting to demonstrate his cognitive abilities.Trump said that a collection of those five nouns, or ones like them, stated in order, demonstrated mental fitness and were part of a cognitive test he had aced. WILL WEISSERT Weissert covers national politics and the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto