After poll results from The Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos released last Friday indicated that an estimated 55% of Americans don’t think President Donald Trump, 79, is physically healthy enough to hold his position, the president reportedly went to an unannounced dentist appointment.
Sebastian Smith of Agence France-Presse said in a Saturday X post that White House Pool reporter Annie Linskey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump left his Jupiter golf club in Florida for a dental appointment. His post also said that the White House called the appointment a “scheduled” appointment at “his local dentist.”
When he’s not in Washington D.C., Trump’s primary residence is the Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Fla.
However, Newsweek noted that the appointment wasn’t on the president’s public schedule and that it has “has drawn questions from doctors, journalists, and political commentators on social media.” For example, Jonathan Reiner – a professor of medicine and surgery, interventional cardiologist and CNN medical analyst – said in a quote re-share of Smith’s post that the White House has its own dental operatory since President Herbert Hoover was in office in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
“Routine dental exams can be done in the WH,” said Reiner. Former President Barack Obama even talked about the White House’s basement dental office in an interview with “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”.
Since he started his second term, Trump has kicked off a large ballroom project at the White House and has changed up other parts of the official presidential residence, including the Oval Office. USA Today reported that the president’s last publicly scheduled dentist appointment on Jan. 10 was also in Florida, and he did not undergo general anesthesia during the appointment.
Trump himself has recently brought attention to presidential health with a Truth Social post from last Thursday.
“Anybody running for President or Vice President should be forced to take a Cognitive Examination prior to entering the Race! By doing so, we wouldn’t be surprised at people like Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama, or Sleepy Joe Biden, getting ‘ELECTED,’” the president said. “Our Country would be a much better place! I took the Exam three times during my (‘THREE!’) Terms as President, and ACED IT ALL THREE TIMES – An Achievement that, even on a single Exam, according to the Doctors, has rarely been done before!”
Despite Trump’s efforts to tout his exam results, a headline from MS NOW said that “Trump’s incessant talk about cognitive tests isn’t reassuring people about his mental fitness.” The Daily Beast also noted that Trump is “overdue” for his annual physical, as the last one was conducted last April and determined that Trump was in “excellent health.”
“Throughout the 2024 campaign and into his second term, Trump made age and cognitive fitness a centerpiece of his attacks on former President Joe Biden, making questions about his own medical status especially consequential,” said Newsweek. Trump became the oldest person inaugurated as a U.S. president last January.
This isn’t the first time that a presidential dentist visit has been met with speculation. It’s also not the first time that Trump’s health and ability to lead the nation has been questioned.
According to the American Dental Association, the rumor that first U.S. President George Washington wore wooden dentures has persisted for centuries. Former President Grover Cleveland actually managed to pull off a secret dental surgery on a yacht to prevent panic, per the ADA.
In 1954, a chicken wing that popped a cap off one of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s teeth led to an emergency dental appointment, erroneous reports that he had died and even a UFO conspiracy theory, the ADA said. Trump was also the subject of death rumors last year.
Speculation about his health has continued this year, as The Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll results showed. In addition to that poll, another Reuters/Ipsos poll from February found that 61% of Americans think Trump is becoming more erratic with age. By the end of this term, Trump will be 82 years old.
