With a brief lull in the Trump-Russia probe coverage, USA Today and Politico Magazine took the opportunity this week to question President Donald Trump’s “fitness” for office.
“When [Jack] O’Donnell [a former Trump employee], who in 1991 published a tell-all book about working with Trump, watches Trump putter along in his vehicle of choice, he doesn’t see a man conserving energy but a man who is unfit for office. As in, literally, physically unfit,” Politico Magazine’s Ben Strauss wrote Tuesday.
Politico Magazine highlighted that during Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, he toured the National Museum in Riyadh in a golf cart. Days later in Sicily, while other world leaders at the G-7 summit walked 700 yards up a hill to a photo-op, Trump followed slightly behind, again in a golf cart.
“Donald Trump is the least athletic president in generations. Here’s why it matters,” the subheadline of the story reads, with Strauss critiquing the president’s taste for fast food and red meat, boldly proclaiming that compared to all other modern presidents, Trump “has evinced less interest in his own health.”
And, according to Strauss, Trump is far more unfit than his predecessors.
“Presidents have long established standards of vigor and healthful living with their individual passions—Ford skied, Reagan rode horses, Carter liked to work on his farm—but Trump has managed to dispense with this unspoken obligation of the presidency as easily as he has every other White House norm,” he wrote.
Despite the myriad of criticisms from Politico Magazine and USA Today, Trump has reportedly never smoked tobacco and doesn’t consume alcohol.
A health expert told the Washington Post in January that “there is no reason why a healthy man in his 70s cannot carry out the demanding responsibilities of president of the United States, especially someone who has just been tested by the rigors of a 16-month campaign.”
USA Today issued a breaking news alert email Monday for its article with a hypothetical diagnosis for the president:
His eating habits are less than ideal. And to top it all off, he doesn’t get enough sleep. For anyone walking into a doctor’s office with those symptoms, stern warnings to change one’s lifestyle are sure to follow. But this patient is President Trump, who plays by different rules.
Author Jayne O’Donnell remarked in the article that these same symptoms can “impact his judgment,” but spill over into his decisions on policy.
“But President Trump’s attitude toward diet and exercise isn’t simply a personal issue. It resonates in his policies on public health. Already his administration has relaxed nutritional standards on school lunches and he has yet to name any members of the president’s fitness council,” she wrote.
O’Donnell is referring to former First Lady Michelle Obama’s health-oriented rules on school lunches, prompting the School Nutrition Association to lobby for less restrictive regulations on ingredients because kids weren’t eating them.
Follow Will Ricciardella on Twitter and Facebook
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.