US President Donald Trump appeared open to releasing the results of a recent MRI, although he said he was unaware which part of his body was examined in the scan.
“If they want to release it, it’s OK with me to release it. It’s perfect,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Pressed by a reporter on which part of his body the MRI examined, Trump said, “I have no idea. It was just an MRI – what part of the body? It wasn’t the brain, because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.”
The comments came as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz pushed for Trump to release the MRI results in reaction to a Thanksgiving Truth Social post in which the president criticised Walz for his handling of the state’s Somali community – using a slur.
“Has anyone in the history of the world ever had an MRI assigned to them and have no idea what it was for, as he says,” Walz later said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press.
Trump revealed in October that he received an MRI at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a visit that the White House billed as the president’s “routine yearly check up”. Trump underwent his annual physical, however, in April.
After later telling reporters he received an MRI, Trump said they should ask his doctors why he received the MRI, but no reason was provided.
In early November, CNN’s Kristen Holmes asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt why Trump got an MRI and she said, “I’ll check back on that,” but no follow up information was provided for why he received the MRI.
“Every single day the president is in optimal physical health. This was a follow up appointment, and we provided a detailed readout of that physical,” Leavitt said.
The White House announced in July that Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition in which valves inside certain veins don’t work the way they should, which can allow blood to pool or collect in the veins.
About 150,000 people are diagnosed with it each year, and the risk goes up with age.
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta said in September that chronic venous insufficiency is not uncommon in older adults and is a condition that prevents blood from “leaving the extremities as well as it should” and causes swelling.