Dr. Vin Gupta on Trump's Health Amid the Iran Crisis

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2:13Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump's health is rapidly collapsing. His cognitive and physical health, in my opinion, deteriorating before our eyes now from Europe to East Asia to South America. Their domestic news outlets are calling this out. It's really been escalating in the press after the horrific NATO summit. But especially right now, as Donald Trump will say things like, I am the guardian of Hormuz and I am hereby declaring 20 percent of the value of your ships. you pay to my mafia protection guardian of Hamus then people are like guardian of Hamus what in the world are you talking about then the next day he will post the exact opposite I have just spoken to my friends in the Middle East I am no longer the guardian of Hamus instead they will be investing trillions of dollars more than the trillions they've already invested and that's what I will do but I will keep the blockade on and then he posts these weird photos of himself and Xi Jinping Ping.

3:15Ben Meiselas:Just also in the Oval Office, he keeps adding more gold. Now he has golden presidential seals that have been added, and the whole thing just looks so utterly bizarre. And clearly, his physical and cognitive deterioration, in my opinion, is on his mind, especially with the death of Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump saying that he believes in the racehorse theory. And Lindsey Graham's father died also at the exact same age, which is notable because Donald Trump's father got Alzheimer's or was diagnosed with Alzheimer's right around the age that Donald Trump is now. And then Fred Trump, Donald Trump's dad, rapidly deteriorated and exhibited basically the exact type of symptoms and things that we're seeing present themselves with Donald Trump.

4:03Ben Meiselas:But here's what Trump said about Lindsey Graham. Let's play it. It was difficult. And his father died just about at the same age. I'm a believer in the racehorse theory. If you have problems, you have problems. And he had some problems that were a little bit deep-seated and not easy to find. So as I note in various countries across the world, this is mainstream coverage right now. So France's Limon, then Germany's ARD, Japan's NHK, Brazil's O Global. They're all talking about, why does this guy keep talking about cognitive exams and bragging about it? Did you see the way the guy looked at Nail?

4:44Ben Meiselas:Why is he behaving this way? So let's take a look at India, the Hindu and Indian TV networks. They're talking about Donald Trump turning 80 and concerns around his physical transparency and his straightforwardness. Coverage in New Delhi and Mumbai emphasize the sharp contradictions in his medical reporting, noting that while Trump claims everything checked out perfectly, it appears independent medical experts in U.S. congressional inquiries are openly questioning why a supposedly healthy individual requires frequent advanced imaging like CT scans. Indie analysis frame his insistence on having ACE multiple cognitive screenings as a calculated political defense mechanism against questions regarding his physical endurance.

5:28Ben Meiselas:in Japan, NHK and Asahi Shimbun. But they're talking about how in Japanese political culture, where leadership transition and public presentation are highly choreographed and risk averse, a foreign head of state repeatedly publicizing reliance on multiple semi-annual medical screenings and cognitive checks suggest internal administrative anxiety rather than standard upkeep. Even in the progressive daily Asahi Shimbun, It frames Trump's defensive social media posts as potential indicators of an unacknowledged underlying problem, raising institutional questions about long term cognitive ability.

6:08Ben Meiselas:In France, Le Monde and France 24, they're talking about his recent behavior of social media statements. Why does he keep saying he's taking the MOCA cognitive exam over and over again? French TV panels interpret Trump's public fixation on perfect scores as a defensive political distraction designed to mask visible physical slowing and structural questions regarding his long term executive endurance. In Germany, you have ARD, ZDF, Der Spiegel, and others. They keep talking about how Donald Trump keep trying to brag about his extreme intelligence is highly unusual for a sitting head of state, and his insistence of a perfect bill of health is raising lots of red flags.

6:56Ben Meiselas:I want to bring in Dr. Vin Gupta, who leads Midas Health. And, you know, this is now a major international concern because people, and it's really unique right now in the United States. It's hard to think, Doc, of other parallels where you could point to like a real world leader who's, because of the health issues that are being presented, pose an existential kind of threat to like everybody, you know, in the entire world right now. And so they're all talking about it right now. What you and I have been talking about for a while, And talk about what you've been noticing recently as well, because from NATO to now, it just seems to be presenting more, in my opinion.

7:41Ben Meiselas:But what do you see? Yeah, I mean, Ben, it's always good to be with you. And I think I've been covering this, you and I, responsibly with the usual qualifications that I'm not his physician. I haven't diagnosed him with an in-person exam. So just to get that out of the way, there is no question. And I've heard all sorts of commentary from afar justifying his behavior as just reflective of his age, all the way to, you know, harsher criticisms and loving diagnoses. I think we can ask very reasonable questions. And an 80-year-old that's behaving the way he is, which is, for example, confusing the country of Iran with Japan.

8:27I mean, I think we all saw that. So these increasing verbal errors and confusion, changes in coherence, I mean, these long digressions that, you know, Asin and others will actually just post verbatim on Twitter. I mean, people can just go and see the dialogue. He's trailing off. He's not completing sentences. He's tangential thought all sort of wrapped up in one long non or incomplete sentence. He has physical changes that are obvious that seem like they're getting accelerating. And so it's hard not to ask the question, why is somebody like him? Why aren't we talking about it more? Not you and me, but why isn't there more of chorus here the way that it was with the former president?

9:18And does he have capacity to engage in that required executive functioning that you need? to be in the highest office in the land. And I think that, you know, if we're being objective and if, you know, his supporters were being objective, if the former president, say President Biden, were to make some of the verbal miscues that the current president is doing, we'd be talking about it endlessly. You know, General confusing. Gee, I believe he confused General Electric with General Motors just the other day. I can't even imagine the uproar that that would have happened if it was the former president.

9:59So there's a different standard, one. Two, I think we should ask questions about capacity. Does he have the capacity to engage in high-level thinking and high-level decision-making that is consequential for the country and for the people of other nations across the world? I have serious concerns there. And I think any reasonable person after now witnessing this decline over the last 18 months should have a similar set of at least concerns and questions. And then, yes, he does nothing to reassure any of us, Ben, that taking repeated MOCA tests, he continues to talk about this. and you know i imagine his physicians and the people around and i've actually probably i'm assuming they've likely told him that is not an adequate defense that's not an adequate flex it's not intending what you think it's intending and therefore it's actually making you look weaker i he's probably just doing this of his own volition and again that's the problem here he they have the capacity to understand what could be an adequate defense to justify his performance and all these miscues.

11:12Ben Meiselas:I'll give you a perfect example. So he's doing an interview the other day. This right-wing media host tells Trump, you're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain in Iran. You're going to do it, right? That's what we want you to do. And then Trump hears it. And then he goes, we're going to take out Pickaxe. You know, they better watch out at Pickaxe Mountain. And what people often say is that the last person who speaks to him or whoever it is, you know, will put the idea and then he'll just go and he'll adopt it and then he'll use it and then he'll go on with it. Then somebody else says something and then he goes with it and somebody else goes something.

11:47Ben Meiselas:And it's why. I mean, I think we have that clip. Let me just show you this one. We've got it. Mr. President, go get pickaxe mountain and don't keep the speaker waiting. I appreciate your time, sir. OK, and we will do that. We're going to take out pickaxe mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready. Let them know we're coming, okay? There's not a damn thing they can do. Okay, and now think about that when Putin gives him a call. And then Zelensky wants to call. And then Putin calls after. And then NATO calls after. And then Xi Jinping calls after. And then he's just, you know, and then Netanyahu says to him when he's in Turkey, they want to, you know, Iran wants to kill you.

12:26Ben Meiselas:Iran, you know, which also seems to have put in motion the ending of the MOU. You could almost kind of trace to somebody telling Trump they want to kill you. And then he had that. They want to kill me. I'm on their list. I'm on their list. And that was kind of, you know, implanted, you know. And so I think the big kind of issue, though, here to your point on executive function, though, is this is impacting. It seems this is what the world was seeing decision making. Like it's impacting everybody's lives. Yeah. I mean, high level decision-making executive functioning and assessing that, then that is not assessed through the Montreal cognitive assessment, MoCA that that's a scrappy tool to assess sort of early stages of cognitive decline, dementia.

13:14It cannot assess other forms of cognitive dysfunction, like your executive functioning. Do you have proper decision-making capabilities? can he be leader of the free world do you engage in clear thought can you articulate a point of view without having verbal miscues all the time and you know seemingly being confused these are things that we're all witnessing that these are factual observations and if people want to deny them or cast them off seeing anybody all sorts of folks explain it away as just normal aging and that he's very unpredictable and this is who he's been and yada yada. I find those to be insufficient explanations.

13:59And then, yes, to your point, broader point on his own physicians, none of this should be partisan at all. We should have a set standard set of expectations about what we as the public should know about presidential health. Medical records now given to presidents, especially the last few presidents, should be a matter of public record. This should not be up to the editorializing and whims of the White House medical team and the chief of staff and the president, Henry herself. This should be a matter of public record because it's consequential to your point. And, you know, we're seemingly getting these disconnected statements and then, you know, alarm across the world because nothing is making sense.

14:45And so none of this should be partisan. And I mean, I hate to say it because I don't want to cast aspersions on folks in my own profession, but nothing that his team, his own medical team is doing, equips them well, that they know what they're doing, that they're competently managing the president's health. So either they're not able to redirect him. And if that's the case, why not just leave the position and come in tact with their reputation? But if that's not the case, then what are they doing? There's a series of gaffe after gaffe and just confusing decision that does not equip them as being credible physicians.

15:23Ben Meiselas:Finally, I want to talk about another massive public health issue because the screening tools have been eliminated and there seems to be a causal relationship there. you know people are learning about uh you know this explosive i mean there's a medical name for it but basically this explosive diarrhea on different types of food and there was detection methods and and things that were um you know pushed aside you know during the whole purges that we saw early on talk to talk to us about what this is how big a deal of it is what should people know, Doug. I mean, part of the issue here, Ben, I mean, and for our audience, this is the explosive diarrhea, quote unquote, outbreak that's happening now in over 40 states, double the case count in just a matter of, say, 72 hours.

16:18I mean, it's, you know, kind of giving us, yes, sort of eerie reminders of early days of, you know, five years ago, these case counts just climbing logarithmically. This is not a pandemic. This is not the same thing, but there's some similar overtones here of leadership that's not meeting the moment, leadership that's perhaps making it a lot worse because they don't know what they're doing. And we thought disinvestments in public health might have impacts maybe a few years down the road. But now we're seeing that this stuff is happening in real time, Ben. Kennedy and his team disinvested the food-borne disease surveillance team.

16:59They basically gutted it at the CDC. What does that team do? It specifically looks for parasites like cyclospora that causes cyclosporiasis, i.e. watery explosive diarrhea. It's specifically, that team is supposed to specifically look for outbreaks of that because this is not uncommon in the summer. This is a parasite that is found on produce in warmer climates. So of course, in the summer, we're going to see cases and that's It's not unusual. We see cases every single summer. What we don't normally see is 10x the number of cases in places like Ohio and Michigan that we're seeing now. We're seeing a dramatic increase in cases, people severely ill, dehydration, especially those that are elderly or immunocompromised.

17:43This can be very, very serious. But typically, we didn't really talk about it. You and I wouldn't be talking about this last summer, the summer prior especially, because we had a CDC team that was in place that could detect spikes and say cyclospora before it became a full-fledged pan-state outbreak. And that is no longer the case, because here's why. That CDC team no longer is actually tracking incident cases of cyclospora before it becomes a full-fledged crisis. They specifically are not looking at that now. They're looking at other bacteria like E. coli, but they didn't have the resources to look and track cyclospora.

18:19So one wonders, why are we talking about this? Well, direct cause align to the decisions that were made, what, six, eight months ago. We thought those decisions would impact us, say, in three to five to 10 years. It's impacting us within, you know, prior to even the midterms. And so let me just close by saying, what do people need to know? My advice would be, I don't think you have to avoid produce. There's some advice out there saying, just avoid all produce for the foreseeable future. That feels extreme to me. Just wash your produce. If you're going to eat green leafy vegetables, wash it, you know, at least for 30 seconds, make sure you're doing it in a strainer, give it a good rinse.

18:59If you're elderly, if you were immunocompromised, if you're medically fragile, you know, on multiple medications, my recommendation That specific case would be to avoid fresh produce like raw leafy lettuce and cook it. Just cook your produce for the foreseeable future until we can get a handle on what the origin is. It looks like we're maybe headed towards that understanding then. Just cook it if you're medically higher risk. And then when to seek a medical provider. I think that's really critical as well. Again, a few days of GI symptoms, so watery diarrhea that is not abating. If you're not able to keep any fluids down, Ben, and if you're medically higher risk.

19:41So again, a few days of symptoms, not able to keep any fluids down, getting dehydrated, and you're somebody that's medically higher risk, so older than 65, underlying medical condition on an immunosuppressant medication, please speak to your medical provider. There's treatments, specific antibiotics that can treat cyclospora, but early testing, early treatment, really vital to keep you out of the hospital or God forbid, any other complications. So something to keep in mind. And then, you know, lastly, I'll just say, where is the messaging from this administration on any of what we just talked about?

20:13There's effectively nothing. And so just something to keep in mind.

20:18Ben Meiselas:It's exactly what I was about to say. What you just said there by itself can be immensely helpful to people in protecting themselves. And because this Trump regime is so focused yet again on covering it up and acting like they're not responsible for it. It reminds me a lot of COVID. Don't test, then there's no cases. Pretend it doesn't exist and it's not there. But it is there and it's impacting people. And just because you don't acknowledge it doesn't mean that it's not impacting people. And it's why you and I do these segments also, because, you know, fortunately, we have a really big audience here and, you know, we can talk about topics like this as well, you know, and get the knowledge out to people.

21:02Ben Meiselas:And hopefully this is something that people will follow and they'll be, you know, and they'll take some steps, you know, to help protect themselves. Doc, thanks as always. Thanks, man. Everybody hit subscribe here. That's Dr. Ben Gupta from Midas Health. You can check out more from the Midas Health podcast and shows that we release. Dr. Gupta leads that. And then make sure you subscribe here. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.