President Donald Trump will have a physical exam early next year and will make the results public, the White House said Thursday, a day after the president appeared to slur his words in a public address.
Near the end of his policy remarks Wednesday on Israel, Trump, 71, began having difficulty with words that included the letter "s," voicing some of them as "sh." He ended by saying what sounded like "and God bless the United Shtesh."
Scores of people asked on social media whether the president had had a stroke or was struggling with dentures, which he isn't known to use.
Asked about the episode at the daily White House news briefing Thursday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the speculation "frankly, pretty ridiculous."
"The president's throat was dry. Nothing more than that," she said.
Sanders said Trump was scheduled to have a routine medical exam "early next year" at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, as most presidents have done historically. She said, "Those records will be released by the doctor following that taking place."
At age 70 last year, Trump was the oldest person ever to have been elected president. As doubts about his capacity to handle the grueling office circulated, his personal physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, wrote a letter declaring: "Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."
Bornstein was more measured in later remarks, telling NBC News in August: "I don't think he's in any better or worse than the average person that goes and exercises every single day. Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink — and that's simply the best advantage you can have to live — and he's got a good family history."
