CNN host Jake Tapper isn’t buying the official White House explanation for President Donald Trump sporting bandages on the back of his hand, arguing on “The Lead” that there’s more to the president’s health picture than has been revealed.
Tapper discussed the matter with CNN chief political analyst David Axelrod and ex-Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Trump wears the bandages as a result of “constantly shaking hands.”
“The White House gave the same explanation for bruising back in July,” Tapper said Thursday. “Obviously, he’s 79 years old. And there is something going on with his health that they’re not telling us, because otherwise, why did he have that MRI?”
Trump visited the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in October for his second “yearly” check-up in six months, later boasting to reporters that the results were “outstanding” — before claiming that he actually has “no idea what they analyzed.”
Axelrod noted that this lack of transparency from the administration is “a common theme.”
“A lot of extraordinary things have happened when the president of the United States has an MRI and can’t remember or name what part of the body the MRI was about,” he told Tapper. “There are questions, there are issues here.”
“And the question is whether the American people deserve to know,” he continued. “They were raised relative to [former President Joe] Biden, [and] they should be raised now, because clearly something’s going on.”
Tapper reminded his guests that Trump is an open germaphobe who has publicly admitted that he doesn’t like shaking hands and asked them how much confidence they have in the official hand-shaking explanation about his bandages.
“I think that there’s going to have to be a better answer,” Griffin told Tapper. “What happens with this, we’ve seen it before, is the rumors and the speculation must take on a life of their own if there’s not some sort of a clear medical answer.”
The conservative “View” co-host continued, “But I think we’ve seen enough from the first Trump term and as far as we are in now, that we’re not going to get a whole lot more information than what we’ve gotten so far.”
The White House previously said Trump’s bruises are the result of a “benign and common condition,” confirming in July that he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, which purportedly also explained the visible swelling of his lower legs.
Tapper and Axelrod both mentioned that the American people have never seen “bruising like this” on the hands of any other U.S. president, so there’s a warranted reason to pursue a convincing answer.
“How about the truth?” Axelrod asked. “How about facts? That would be good.”
