NYT Says It Won't Stop Writing About Trump's Health

The New York Times, attacked by President Trump for reporting about his physical condition, said on Wednesday that it wouldn't be deterred by "false and inflammatory language" that distorts the role of a free press. The president said in a Truth Social post Tuesday night that he believed it was "seditious, perhaps even treasonous" for the Times and other media outlets to do "FAKE" reports on his health, the AP reports. "They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it," Trump wrote.

• The 79-year-old president wouldn't specify, but the newspaper has posted a handful of reports about his health in recent weeks. In a Nov. 25 story headlined "Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office," reporters examined Trump's public and travel schedules to conclude Americans were seeing less of him than they were used to. A story on Dec. 2, accompanied by a video, said that Trump "appeared to be fighting sleep" during a Cabinet meeting that day.

• Columnist Frank Bruni discussed these reports in a Dec. 8 opinion piece headlined "Trump's Approval Ratings Have Declined. So Has His Vigor." Bruni wrote that Americans "might want to brace ourselves for some presidential deja vu. He's starting to give President Joe Biden vibes." Biden, who was in his early 80s, dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House after a disastrous debate with Trump that raised doubts about the then-incumbent's fitness for office.
• Trump, in his post, said he was history's hardest-working president with a lengthy list of accomplishments. He said he went out of his way to do "long, thorough and very boring" medical examinations. "In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know," he wrote.
• "The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am 'slowing up,' and maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true," Trump said.

• Nicole Taylor, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said the outlet's reporting on Trump's health is heavily sourced, based on interviews with people close to the president and with medical experts. "Americans deserve in-depth reporting and regular updates about the health of the leaders they elect," Taylor said. "Mr. Trump welcomed our reporting on the age and fitness of his predecessors; we're applying the same journalistic scrutiny to his vitality."