Donald Trump erupted at The New York Times on Wednesday, unleashing fury over a report claiming he is showing clear signs of aging and has dramatically cut back his workload during his second term.
In a blistering Truth Social rant, Trump zeroed in on the physical appearance of one of the article’s authors, a female journalist, after the Times detailed how the president has sharply reduced his public schedule compared to the first ten months of his initial term and now exhibits “signs of wear” whenever he does appear.
The 79-year-old, who has frequently been caught nodding off during events, lashed out by writing, “The Radical Left Lunatics in the soon to fold New York Times did a hit piece on me that I am perhaps losing my Energy, despite facts that show the exact opposite. They know this is wrong, as is almost every thing that they write about me, including election results, ALL PURPOSELY NEGATIVE.”
Trump continued by going after the Times reporter directly: “The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out. Despite all of this, I have my highest Poll Numbers, ever, and with record setting investment being made in America, they should only go up.”
He added, “There will be a day when I run low on Energy, it happens to everyone, but with a PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST (‘That was aced’) JUST RECENTLY TAKEN, it certainly is not now!”
But Trump, set to become the oldest president ever to serve, did not exactly strengthen his argument in the same rambling post, incorrectly writing that he “one our Nation’s Districts by 2750 to 550,” instead of using the word “won.”
A Times spokesperson pushed back in a statement to the Daily Beast, saying their reporting is “accurate and built on firsthand reporting of the facts. Name-calling and personal insults don’t change that, nor will our journalists hesitate to cover this administration in the face of intimidation tactics like this.”
Trump has routinely bristled at questions surrounding his physical or cognitive state—criticisms he himself once leveled intensely at his 83-year-old predecessor, Joe Biden. Yet the current president has frequently shown up in public with bruised hands, puffy ankles, and recently confirmed he had an MRI as part of his second physical within a year.
Concerns about his condition escalated earlier this month when the 79-year-old appeared to drift off during an Oval Office briefing on the rising cost of weight-loss drugs.
The New York Times report on Tuesday indicates that Trump may be reducing his schedule to cope with the demands of the job. His official public events have dropped by 39 percent—from 1,688 in the first ten months of his previous term to 1,029 so far this year.
He is also starting later than before. In 2017, Trump’s average first scheduled event began shortly after 10:30 a.m., based on Roll Call data analyzed by the Times. Now his events typically begin at 12:08 p.m., while still concluding just after 5 p.m.
Despite the increasingly visible signs of strain—including a drooping facial appearance noted during a 9/11 memorial ceremony—the White House insists nothing is wrong. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Beast that the administration has been “open and transparent about the president’s health, which remains exceptional,” contrasting it with the previous administration that “covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and hid him from the press.”
Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, suggested that Trump’s team may be taking steps similar to Biden’s aides to conceal deeper issues. “The people around him are similar to Biden’s aides,” Dallek told the Times. “They would talk as if we’re living in a little bit of a fantasy world. Trump, in that way, with the help of his aides and his doctors, has created this fiction about his health to hide the hard, cold truth that he is 79 and one of the oldest people to ever occupy the Oval Office.”
