Trump reveals he had MRI after questioning Jasmine Crockett and AOC’s IQ, raising concerns about health

Previous questions about Trump’s health emerged over bruising on his right hand and leg swelling, which even resulted in conspiracy theories about Trump’s mortality.

U.S. President Donald Trump revealed on Monday that he underwent an MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, earlier this month, raising immediate questions about his health.

“I got an MRI. It was perfect,” he told reporters on Air Force One on his way to Japan after being asked about his visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center earlier this month. When asked to elaborate about the MRI, he falsely said, “I gave you the full results.”

While the White House Office of the Physician to the President released a letter on Oct. 10 confirming he underwent follow-up tests, the letter did not mention an MRI.

When asked to provide more specifics, Trump told reporters, “You could ask the doctors.” He later falsely stated, “But I think they gave you a very conclusive report. Nobody has ever given you reports like I gave you.”

Annual physical reports are a standard practice for presidents in modern history. Still, the White House decides what is revealed from those examinations, as the public release of a president’s health records is not required by law.

Trump proclaimed that doctors said his examination was “some of the best reports they’ve ever seen.”

Before his revelation that he had an MRI, the president railed against his usual political foes, Democratic U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, calling them both “low IQ.”

Crockett is a former civil rights attorney who graduated from the University of Houston Law School and Rhodes College. Ocasio-Cortez graduated cum laude from Boston University.

“They have Jasmine Crockett, a low-IQ person. They have, uh, AOC’s low IQ. If you give her an IQ test, have her pass like the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed. I took…those are very hard. Uh, they’re really aptitude tests, in a certain way, but they’re cognitive tests,” Trump said on Monday.

“Let AOC go against Trump. Okay. Let Jasmine go against Trump. I don’t think Jasmine…the first couple of questions are easy. A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know, when you get up to about five or six, and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, they couldn’t come close to answering any of those questions.”

It’s unclear what aptitude tests Trump referred to, as his physician’s Oct. 10 letter did not specify any such tests. It also does not appear that Trump took any IQ test, though he frequently references his IQ as superior to others.

The revelation of an MRI will likely raise more concerns about President Trump’s health. Previous questions about his health emerged over bruising on his right hand and leg swelling, which even resulted in conspiracy theories about Trump’s mortality. The White House previously explained that the hand bruising was a result of chronic venous insufficiency, which Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described as a “benign and common condition” for individuals over the age of 70. Trump is 79. 

The first Trump administration wasn’t forthcoming about the president’s condition after he contracted COVID-19 in 2020. Despite claiming that he experienced “mild symptoms,” it was later revealed that he had low blood oxygen levels, and it was believed that he could need to be put on a ventilator.

Given the attention Trump and others put on former President Joe Biden’s health and fitness–something that resulted in him dropping out of the race for re-election–many Democrats and critics have argued that the same attention should be paid to Trump’s health now that he is president for a second time. Trump became the oldest person elected president in the 2024 election.

“I think people should give Trump’s health the same attention and energy that they gave Biden’s health,” Yemisi Egbewole, a former Biden White House aide, previously told theGrio.

“The irony is hard to miss here that Trump and the whole MAGA movement spent so much time making Biden’s age their rallying cry, like he ran again on Biden’s age, and now the spotlight is on his own health, and it feels like they always want to change the subject,” said Egbewole. “If we could sit with the conversation on Biden’s health, and we should be able to sit with the conversation on Trump’s health.”