President Donald Trump will visit Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on May 26 for his annual dental and medical evaluation. This marks the third time he has visited a dentist this year, and the second time just this month.
On May 2, Trump went to a dentist in Palm Beach, Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago estate. The visit was not on the president's public schedule, but the White House claimed afterward it was merely “a scheduled dental appointment at his local dentist.”
Trump had a similar appointment in early January, visiting a dentist in Florida the morning of Jan. 10. The White House used the exact same language in its statement at the time: “President Trump is going to a scheduled dental appointment at his local dentist in Florida.”
The White House has its own dental suite, which raises the question of why Trump would schedule routine appointments elsewhere if they are actually routine.
On its own, back-to-back-to-back “routine” appointments might be more easily dismissed, but in conjunction with Trump’s advanced age — he will turn 80 in June — and other health problems, it is hard not to speculate.
Last June, amid questions about Trump’s swollen ankles and a persistent and poorly concealed bruise on the president’s hand, the White House said Trump has “chronic venous insufficiency.” The diagnosis explains Trump’s swollen ankles, but probably not the bruised hand.
“It’s very rare for people to get chronic venous insufficiency in the arms, and so it’s unlikely that the skin discoloration is due to varicose veins or the chronic venous insufficiency issue,” Dr. Hugh Pabarue, a physician and vein specialist at Metro Vein Centers in Michigan told HuffPost.
Soon after the CVI diagnosis, Trump had two “yearly” checkups within a six-month span, concluding with a magnetic resonance imaging test in October, though he could not say why. The president told reporters on Air Force One afterward he had “no idea” what it was for or what part of his body was being imaged, even as he insisted the results were “absolutely perfect.”
“It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it,” he said.
Trump has lately been boasting about the number of cognitive tests his doctors ask him to complete. The test, called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), is intended to suss out dementia-linked cognitive decline.
“I’ve taken three,” Trump boasted earlier this month, two days after the first of his two unscheduled-but-scheduled offsite dentist appointments in Palm Beach. “No president, think of this, has ever taken one.”
Maybe he just needs a nap.
