Trump, near 80, to have annual physical amid scrutiny of recent ailments

United States President Donald Trump, who turns 80 next month, will undergo his routine annual physical on Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, following a year of public attention on apparently minor health issues. Trump frequently casts himself as more energetic and fitter than Joe Biden, his Democratic predecessor who left office last year at age 82 after facing questions about his fitness for the job. Still, recent photographs showing a blotchy neck rash have added to questions about Trump’s health, following images in July 2025 of swollen ankles and a bruised hand concealed with makeup. Trump, whose birthday is June 14, became the oldest person to assume the presidency when he began his second term in January 2025. Trump maintains an active golf schedule, but joked about his relative lack of exercise at a recent Oval Office event where his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr said the president walks 14.5 kilometres every time he goes golfing. “When I am not using the cart,” Trump said. White House physician Sean Barbabella has said Trump is using a common cream as “a preventative skin treatment” to address the neck rash, but he has not given details of the condition being treated. After the photographs of the president’s legs and hands were published last July, Barbabella said in a letter that the ailments were benign and that there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease. Trump’s leg swelling was from a “common” vein condition, and his hand was bruised from shaking so many hands, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters. Trump said last October that he had received a magnetic resonance imaging exam that month. The White House initially declined to share further details on the reason for the scan. Leavitt said only that it indicated “exceptional physical health” for Trump. The president later told reporters he got the MRI as part of a second physical exam. “Getting an MRI is very standard. What, you thi