Top Physician Dr. Gupta on Trump's Health Decline and Public Sleeping Episodes

0:00Ben Meiselas:Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.

0:28Ben Meiselas:Some days, just making it to the end feels like all you can manage. The stress, the responsibilities, the uncertainty, it all starts to stack up. And when you're overwhelmed, taking that first step to reach out for help can seem impossible. You might wonder, where do I start? Will I be understood? And will it even make a difference? At Rogers Behavioral Health, we understand that moment. And we'll meet you there, exactly where you are. Because together, we can help you make sense of your challenges and find the support that fits you and your life. Because our treatment is personalized, not one size fits all.

1:03Ben Meiselas:And if you're facing anxiety, OCD, an eating disorder, depression, or challenges with substance use, we've got you covered there too, with compassion and care that makes each step feel easier than the last. At Rogers Behavioral Health, one step can change everything. Visit rogersbh.org or call 800-767-4411 to start with a free screening. This is a paid message from GoFundMe. Meet Juan Naula. When his son was hospitalized for a viral infection, Juan started a GoFundMe to pay for medical expenses. It was 5K to pay the bill for my son, and I needed only 22 hours. It was amazing. People really trust on GoFundMe.

1:47How did Juan raise$5 ,000 in less than a day? He posted a short video on GoFundMe, telling his story in 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Be specific, be quick, and tell what are you going to be using the funds for. I was nervous to do it because it doesn't feel okay to ask money, but you shouldn't be nervous. Sometimes you just have to do it and see the results. We were able to save my son's life. Thanks to GoFundMe that we still have my son with us.

2:18Ben Meiselas:Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. This message reflects one person's experience. Donald Trump's health is completely collapsing. His cognitive, physical health collapsing before our eyes. The White House panicking, saying, what we are seeing is not actually happening. The White House posted, His eyes are literally open in the clip you posted, you dumbass mouth breathers. And it was the headquarters doing the post that the Midas Touch had been pushing out there on social media, showing Donald Trump clearly falling asleep during multiple Oval Office press conferences this week.

3:01Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump holding interviews where his eyes look completely swollen. His hands look swollen. His ankles look swollen. There were all the red flags, of course, with Donald Trump not surfacing for about eight days after that so-called physical at Walter Reed where there were more CT scans. Unclear were there many strokes taking place. Many people have speculated based on the droopy face, his inability to walk downstairs, his inability to complete sentences, the way his hand just looks absolutely unwell, we'll just say, the blotches of makeup all over. I mean, zoom in over here. I mean, utterly deranged stuff.

3:46Ben Meiselas:And you think about it, Donald Trump gave this interview with the New York Post trying to defend the indefensible, the fact that he keeps on getting physicals over and over again. Here's what he told Miranda divine over at new york post who almost looked like she was looking at him like he was in hospice care the way she was having a conversation with him here watch for yourself and tell me what you think here play this clip you just tell your health thing and you're you're 14 years younger cardiac health and cognitive yeah they said i'm very healthy i just i do physicals because i just want i think i have an obligation to do it but i just came out with very very good results and i I took a test, a cognitive test, and I got 100 % on it.

4:30Ben Meiselas:I got, as the expression goes, I aced it. And the doctors told me it's very, very few people can ace that. It's actually a tough test. You know, once you get past the first half of the questions, those questions get difficult. Is it a memory? What is it that you've got a good memory? I have a great memory. Have a good, look, so far so good. Yeah. I hope I'm going to keep it that way. And then he told those farmers in Wisconsin that they have a much nicer life than him because their ear wasn't pierced the way his ear was pierced. Your ear wasn't pierced. What are you talking about? They keep going on claiming he was shot in the face by an AR-15 bullet.

5:07Ben Meiselas:He had a little bandage on your ear and you never released your medical records. Here, let's just play this clip. Or a small business. Now, I saw it myself. You have a way of life that sometimes you're land rich and cash poor. Sometimes you have lots of different conditions, but people that are on farms love being on farms. You wouldn't trade my life. You wouldn't want my life. Believe me, you don't want it. Your life is much better than my life. I will tell you, your ear wasn't a little pierced over here. You didn't get pierced. You have a nice, safe, beautiful life. And then Donald Trump failed a real life cognitive exam before farmers in Wisconsin by struggling to remember the name of the Washington Monument.

5:52Ben Meiselas:Here, play this clip. Look at that. I mean, look at that. It just opened yesterday. We just opened it. So it was going to take four years, 400 million. It took really about a month. Can you imagine Washington between Lincoln? Think of Washington, D.C., between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington, I think just think about this, you know, that beautiful spire in honor of the great George Washington and the beautiful Lincoln Memorial. So between there, thousands of feet long. It was built in 1922. And to be honest, it never really worked. It leaked like a sieve because it was stone and concrete.

6:37Ben Meiselas:And you have the governor of New York, Governor Hochul, talking about Donald Trump falling asleep. And you see him clearly falling asleep there. You have Governor Newsom of California talking about Donald Trump constantly falling asleep. I mean, it's indefensible what we see right there. And they refuse to acknowledge it. I need to bring in an expert right now who can really break this down for us. I want to bring in a world-renowned physician, Dr. Vin Gupta. He leads Midas Health, and I want to ask Dr. Gupta about all of the red flags regarding Donald Trump's health collapse before our eyes. Let's get the Midas Health lead doctor, world-renowned physician, Dr.

7:19Ben Meiselas:Vin Gupta, to help break it down. Now I want to bring in Dr. Vin Gupta, who leads Midas Health. Dr. Gupta, great to see you. You know, we've been seeing Donald Trump's behavior this week, his physical condition, his cognitive condition, the fact that he was away from public appearances for about eight days before kind of reemerging with that interesting physical that was taking place at Walter Reed earlier. and then we got the readout of, I don't want to call it a medical report because that thing's not what a typical medical, we'll call it a narrative that felt a lot like a fantasy narrative than a reality, but I'm not an expert here.

8:03Ben Meiselas:So I want to get your general view of what you've observed with Trump this week, whether it was the sleeping, the physical condition, the New York post-interview with the swollen legs, the swollen eyes now. It looks underneath the eyes look very puffy. The hands, of course. What do you make of it all, Doc? Well, Ben, I think you and I have been on the leading edge of this many, many months ago before everybody was talking about it. And so I just want to say that I don't think we were overly speculating and I thought we've been cautious from the start, but I also think we've been proven right that there's serious questions here that have not been answered in a serious way by his own physicians.

8:47And so number one, I would say I'll make three points. One, the medical documentation was released on a Friday night. They referenced his physicians who have repeatedly, and I think many of my peers have repeatedly raised questions about their professionalism, just how they speak and how they write. They don't write in a medically impassive, impartial way. They editorialize, and they're very flamboyant in how they communicate. And it seems like they're trying to get across a political point versus just simple medical documentation. As proof of that, they talk about AI cardiac age. Listen, we're all bullish to some degree in medicine on the promise of new technologies to improve patient care.

9:34But to be citing that in a physical exam for president is ludicrous because none of that has been proven out as being completely accurate. So to cite these things as part of a physical exam shows that there's an amateurism here at play, one. Two, they don't talk at all about real neuropsychiatric evaluation of his executive functioning. They talk about his MOCA test. He keeps talking about this Montreal cognitive assessment tool, which either he is misinterpreting or his team is misinterpreting. I suspect it's him. This is not something. And again, you and I have been having this conversation for over a year now.

10:12You do not get this test with this type of frequency. It doesn't make any sense. It's a scrappy, crude screening tool to assess cognitive function. It barely screens for early signs of dementia. It is not a great screening tool to understand whether or not, or an assessment tool to understand whether or not you have the executive functioning capabilities to be the president of the United States. He keeps doing it because I think he understands at minimum that it's an easy test to pass. And therefore it's some sort of flex that he's okay. It's not answering the questions that serious people have about his clear decline and his mental status.

10:54Number three, I would just say that, you know, we talk a lot about him being sleepy in these Oval Office meetings, whether he has a healthcare executive or whether he has the Department of Interior behind his seat, behind the Resolute Desk. He was just sleeping, very clearly falling asleep for periods of time. Even if the White House wants to deny it, it's obvious. I'll say this as a pulmonologist. I worry. I mean, we need to understand why somebody so sleepy for multiple periods of time throughout the daytime hours. That's not normal. That is not a normal, oh, they're just 80 years old, that's okay to fall asleep in the middle of the day.

11:36No, usually there's an explanation for that. And so what is the explanation? They like to parry it away that he's the chief executive of the country, and therefore that explains that away. I'm not so sure that does. His working hours are pretty limited based on his White House schedule that's reported out. He is falling asleep in front of the camera repeatedly. And I worry about, does he have a sleep disorder? Does he have sleep apnea? You know, he's clearly overweight, if not obese, even though they like to fudge his vital signs and his overall biometrics. I do worry, does he, does he have sleep apnea?

12:12And there's just not either testing for it or they're not being completely transparent about his healthcare. So whether it's just how they talk about his health, whether it's the fact that they're not talking about the right type of testing when it comes to his neurologic cognitive functioning, or whether it's just the complete absence, Ben, of explanation for why he is so sleepy during multiple periods of time throughout the day, there's clearly a lack of transparency here on the part of his medical team. And I think we're asking appropriate questions and we continue to ask these questions because the people and the public deserve answers.

12:49Ben Meiselas:You know, from a legal perspective, when I try to break down what's happening in Bondi's interview, and I use my litigation pass to say, look what they're hiding over here. And this is not the language that's used of transparency. And here's why I would go through Bondi's deposition. And I would say, if you really wanted to get out the truth, this is what would be included. Here's what was omitted. And, you know, here we are in a medical realm. And you look at that document that we can't even call a medical report. It is a narrative. And we see, and you point out, there are gaps. There are things that are being said there from a medical professional that raise red flags and raise these questions, things that you've seen in a narrative there that no doctor who is respectable would put in any report ever.

13:52Ben Meiselas:And so you go, it looks like you're putting this out there just to BS us. Now, why would you be doing that? And then you put in all these other factors. And I know you and I speak a lot about that. So talk to us just a little bit about what would resolve all of it. Like if we wanted to know the answers, there's a way to know the answers. We would get certain types of tests. There would be things that would happen and we would go, got it. That's how we would know that they're hiding. What would normally happen in a situation like this if this was a credible process? Sure. I mean, at this point, I would say, let's say, for example, the fact that, Ben, they'd like to talk about the fact that the president has bruising on both of his, the backs of his hands, because he's on high dose aspirin, because he wants to be on high dose aspirin, and because he's shaking hands with a lot of people.

14:46You know, that would, you might say that that passes the test of credibility. If it was on one hand, his dominant hand, where he was shaking hands with a lot of people and he was on high dose aspirin. Okay, fine. Maybe, maybe I would buy that as a secondary complication of being on high dose aspirin. Usually somebody on high dose aspirin would have perhaps stomach bleeding, bleeding of the stomach lining. Perhaps you would see some evidence of that in lab workup or on just subjective review of their symptoms, how they live their day to day. None of that is obviously coming through in his physical exam.

15:20But the fact that they're even saying that, and I mean, Ben, they're putting that in the physical exam that that they think he has bilateral bruising of the back of his hands because he shakes a lot of people's hands. And it's a secondary complication of being on high dose aspirin. They're putting the explanation and they're editorializing in the physical exam. That's not that's not normal. You don't do that. You don't put a cardiac age to justify somebody being 14 years younger than their chronologic age in the physical exam. That's editorializing. That's that's providing your own opinion and something that should be an objective statement based on what you're seeing.

15:56during your examination so number one in terms of what we should be seeing in this case is what is a normal physical exam of the president and what's the normal readout here without the editorialization we cannot trust anything in my view that this medical team puts out because when they put it out on a friday night three days after he actually got the exam why the delay why a friday night they don't want to bring attention to it fine uh that's obvious friday night hoping that's going to escape scrutiny uh two why the editorialization three why didn't they know going back to our initial discussion on this back you know many many months ago that he got a evidently a ct instead of an mri of his torso he had to be his own docs had to be corrected then by the by the patient himself the president of this case that makes no sense it makes me wonder if the president actually even entrusts his doctors to put out a statement that won't cause more questions than reassurance, hence the Friday night report.

16:58I wonder how much trust he actually has in his medical team not to actually create more of a worsening, confusing situation. So part of this is just the communicator, the messenger in this case, his own team. I think they're creating more trouble for themselves and for the president than they realize. Two, just release the actual reports at this point. You know, it's not hard to release the actual facsimile of the labs. Just release the labs. Release the actual reports of the imaging studies that they supposedly got or did not get. And let us, the peanut gallery in their view, make our own judgment here.

17:40you know they have the ability to just release the reports just release them some presidents choose not to some presidents choose to release everything why not just release it at this point if there's nothing to hide in their view and the fact that they continue to filter out curate these medical notes on friday night then uh and with all this editorialization and ai cardiac age which no credible physician would ever put in a physical exam much less bilateral bruising from handshaking plus high dose aspirin you know these are signals that he doesn't have a team that is serious about their profession anymore they're serious about maintaining their job if you ask me but this is also symptomatic of the broader set of quote-unquote doctors around him at the fda fda commissioner that was has since been fired marty mackery somebody i had a lot of respect for as a clinician back in the day but uh saw the uh a path that was not favorable one on fox news during the pandemic spread a lot of falsehoods, became the FDA commissioner, no surprise, got fired because he played a game that he shouldn't have, betrayed his own profession.

18:47Look at Mehmet Oz, classic sort of archetype of spreading snake oil for the pursuit of power. You know, he's not going to be acquitted well in the courts of the Hippocratic Oath, at least. uh his surgeon general nominee third in line uh ben uh her claim to fame is having a supplement line you know it seems like you have to be profiting off the profession of medicine to be the search general on the surgeon general nominee and so it's all to say none of the docs around this president are credible certainly his own medical physicians have have lost all credibility if you ask me and i would laugh i would just say you know why don't there's all these questions about his sleepiness, I say this as a pulmonologist, why not just release the report of his sleep study?

19:35He is clearly overweight. Get a sleep study. If they haven't already, get one and release the report of that. And versus the curated filtered version of whatever they describe that sleep study to be, which, you know, very few people actually trust at this point. I don't know if they're going to do that, but if you're asking me what they should do, That's what they should do, but they're not going to do it clearly because past is prolonged.

19:59Ben Meiselas:And doc, finally, I want to switch gears, but not too much because we are talking about medical assessments of people and the types of assessments that can be made or not be made. What I find interesting and very disturbing actually are some of these changes to Medicaid coming in 2027, pushed by Trump and MAGA. And there are these Medicaid work requirements that starting in 2027, it seems like every six months, a doctor is going to not have to make a medical, you know, medical diagnoses, go beyond that and make a adjudication of whether as a result of certain medical conditions, a individual is capable of working.

20:49Ben Meiselas:And so now the physician becomes a judge. And as opposed to what the physician should be doing, doing the tests, putting the labs, getting all the accurate information, how can I treat you, but now becoming a basically a de facto a work judge to make decisions for Medicaid and to say you can or can't work. And with all of the Trump regime saying, if we think that you made the wrong call, we're going to prosecute you for fraud. And you as the doctor may now go to prison. That may make doctors just say, I'd rather just say you can work because if I say you can't work and then the Trump regime says I'm engaged in fraud, I can now go to I can go to prison, you know, for that.

21:41Ben Meiselas:It seems to. How do you see this issue? That was beautifully described and completely accurate. This is the concern for our audience out there. The Center for Medicaid and Medicaid Services just released an updated rule stating that they expect people on Medicaid, when given this issue of work requirements that you have now every six months, supposedly starting very soon, early 2027. If you're on Medicaid, you're going to have to demonstrate, you're going to have to submit paperwork every six months to your state Medicaid agency stating that you're working a pre-specified period of time. There's a variety of rules that would encourage you to look it up if this affects you or a loved one.

22:26what are those rules? And if you, for example, cannot meet those work requirements, if you can't work because of a medical condition, usually then the expectation, and I think this is very sensible, is that people could self-attest that they could not work. And I can tell you in many instances, I care for very sick patients, those out of the ICU, both in my reservist capacity in the US Air Force, but, and also as a civilian intensive care unit physician, I've seen a lot of people, Ben, that, you know, for whatever reason, may not be able to make it into a clinical visit with me, but at baseline are not doing well because they've been in the ICU for a period of time and just have a poor functional status or have terrible emphysema and just can't get around all that well anymore and don't need me to state the obvious.

23:21but what are they now saying? They're basically saying that you can no longer self-attest that you have a work-limiting condition, medical condition, even if you've been able to do so and your medical record justifies it. No, you have to get a physician or a medical provider to sign off on paperwork every six months. And what's the complication here is exactly what you said. What physician decided to go into the profession of medicine to heal patients to now suddenly be put into a position where they have to adjudicate who does and does not get health care insurance. This is the moral injury that they're introducing.

23:59This administration is introducing it to the profession of medicine as if they haven't already made the lives of physicians harder by reducing the number of people that have access to health care, by making the lives of pediatricians a lot harder, by making all the rhetoric and dialogue on safety and efficacy of vaccines, far more complicated than it needs to be. Now they're basically saying for a very vulnerable population, those on Medicaid, you as a physician or a medical provider will have to sign paperwork documenting that a patient can or cannot work to justify their access to needed medical care.

24:36One, it's immoral that we as a society are even in this place in the first place. We shouldn't have to be in this place to begin with. Everybody deserves healthcare. as a basic human right. But number two, the notion that a physician went to medical school or a nurse practitioner went to nurse practitioner school or a physician assistant went to physician assistant school to engage in this, to understand, well, gosh, you have the capability to work a specific job and therefore you are granted the ability to have access to Medicaid. Or no, you do not have the capability to work a specific job. Therefore, we're going to exempt you from work requirements and therefore you can maintain your access to Medicaid.

25:14This is not our job. We have 15 minutes then in that clinical visit to actually do direct patient care. No provider wants to be doing this. No patient is driving in to see their provider in a busy downtown clinic to have to engage in this conversation. So all they're doing is they know what's going to happen. They know that people are not going to be able to navigate this every six months, the paperwork, the signatures. They already knew that in the first place. Now they're just making it even harder. So what's going to happen? And those that are on the fringes of medical care, on the fringes of just basic, good quality of life from a healthcare perspective, they're going to suffer.

25:52They're going to suffer. And they're just basically guaranteeing that people are going to fall off the rolls and that a lot of people aren't necessarily going to suffer and likely die because of this policy. This is moral injury. This is the definition of moral injury.

26:07Ben Meiselas:Dr. Vinh Gupta, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate you. Thank you. everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers.