With medical report, Harris seeks to play health card vs Trump

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two from Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 11, 2024. (AFP)

WASHINGTON – Democratic White House candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House Saturday, as she aims to put pressure on rival Donald Trump to publish his own health records.

“Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”

According to Simmons, Harris’s most recent physical exam, conducted in April, was “unremarkable.”

Simmons noted that Harris suffers from seasonal allergies and hives, which are managed by non-prescription as well as prescription medications. Harris is also slightly nearsighted and wears contact lenses, the report said.

The US vice president’s team seeks to put the spotlight on the physical health and mental acuity of 78-year-old former president Trump, who has so far refused to release any detailed medical information. Harris is 59.

Republican Trump became the oldest presidential nominee in US history after 81-year-old President Joe Biden withdrew from the White House race in July.

Biden passed the torch to Harris after a disastrous debate against Trump raised concerns in the Democratic Party about his own mental sharpness.

But Trump’s apparent vitality means that his age has not so far weighed against his chances in the polls, in a knife-edge battle with Harris in the November 5 presidential election.

Harris’s campaign drew attention to a recent series of articles in the New York Times that raised concerns about the fact that Trump had failed to disclose basic information about his health.

The newspaper also published an analysis of Trump’s language showing that his speeches are increasingly long, “confused” and include vulgarities, a trend seen by experts as a possible sign of cognitive change.

Trump insists he is fully fit, but he has not released any full medical report for his campaign.

In late 2023, Trump released a note from his former White House doctor declaring him to be in “excellent” health, but it was short on details and did not say what tests Trump had undergone when he had a physical in September 2023.

The same doctor, Ronny Jackson, issued a statement in July after Trump’s ear was wounded by an assassin’s bullet at a rally in Pennsylvania, saying the former president was doing well.

Trump meanwhile boasted about a cognitive test he had undergone with Jackson while president in 2018 — but then immediately flubbed his doctor’s name, calling him “Ronny Johnson.”

If Trump wins the election in November, he would be 82 at the end of his second term in the Oval Office.

Agence France-Presse