LEAVE ME ALONE
Quick question for you. Whose medical chart do you want to see? If the honest answer depends on which party the patient belongs to, take the white pill with me this morning. Doctor’s orders.
“Leave me alone”
On Oct. 3 in Vandalia, Ohio, President Trump explained his aspirin habit to a rally crowd, HuffPost reported. “I take an aspirin a day. I don’t know if it works, but psychologically, I need it.” He takes “the big one,” he said. “It’s a monster.” And when his doctors suggested a smaller dose: “They said, ‘Sir, you don’t need that!’ I said, ‘Do me a favor, I’ve been doing OK for 35 years. Leave me alone.’”
That’s not a rumor. It’s in writing. The May 29 memo from his physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, recommended “a low-dose aspirin,” more exercise and continued weight loss, while declaring the president in “excellent health” with a cognitive score of 30 out of 30. Doctors generally advise 81 milligrams for prevention; Trump told The Wall Street Journal in January he takes 325, CNN reported.
Now the Journal reports Barbabella must stay no more than three minutes away from the president at all times, per The Independent’s summary. In fairness, a doctor on call is standard; a former White House physician has described keeping one within two minutes of past presidents. What isn’t standard is the patient: at 80, the oldest president ever elected, telling a crowd he overrides the advice.
LEAVE ME ALONE is the patient’s position. It’s also both parties’ position, whenever the patient is theirs.
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump had his May 26, 2026, physical with 22 specialty providers. Rep. Jamie Raskin counts it as his third hospital visit in 13 months. Credit: U.S. Army, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The red costume: the test was urgent in 2024
In February 2024, Rep. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former White House physician, led a letter, co-signed by 83 House Republicans, demanding that President Biden take a cognitive test, Fox News reported. The letter’s key line: “The President of the United States must demonstrate sound mental abilities, regardless of gender, age, or political party, which you have not.” It was Jackson’s fifth such letter.
Regardless of political party. Hold that thought.
Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, Trump’s former White House physician, in his 2025 official portrait. In February 2024 he led a letter, co-signed by 83 House Republicans, demanding President Biden take a cognitive test “regardless of gender, age, or political party.” Credit: Brian Thorpe, U.S. House of Representatives, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
On April 10, 2026, Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote to Barbabella demanding a full cognitive assessment of Trump and borrowed the GOP’s own words to do it: “As Republican congressional leaders have repeatedly said, the American people deserve to know whether our President is mentally capable of making the life-or-death decisions that his office demands.” By his June 18 follow-up, the only answer had been, in his words, “a schoolyard insult from a White House spokesman.” He’s now asking who the 22 specialists were and why the exam needed “a medical team nearly the size of a major league baseball team roster.”
To be fair to the White House, it did publish a cognitive score this time. In 2024, Biden’s White House said he wouldn’t take the test. But the letter’s signers wrote “regardless of political party.” Ask them if they still mean it.
The blue costume: “cheap fakes”
Now the other side. In the same February 2024 week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would not take a cognitive test as part of his physical, and the White House answered Jackson’s demand by sending Fox News a picture of Dr. Nick from The Simpsons. On June 17, 2024, she dismissed viral clips of Biden as “cheap fakes video” that “are done in bad faith,” per the briefing transcript.
Some of those clips really were trimmed, PolitiFact found. The questions weren’t fake. When House Republicans called Biden’s own White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, in July 2025, he invoked the Fifth Amendment and doctor-patient privilege, The Hill reported.
Fast-forward to today and Democrats are the party of “release the records.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, posted “Release the MRI results” in November 2025, Newsweek reported.
The party that called the questions “cheap fakes” now calls them oversight.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a White House briefing, March 5, 2024. That June she called viral clips of President Biden “cheap fakes” made “in bad faith.” Credit: Oliver Contreras, The White House, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Both costumes
Here’s the adult version.
Disclosure here runs on permission. Barbabella’s memo says it plainly: “The President has authorized the public release of these findings.” The patient decides what you see. Both parties like that system fine when their guy is the patient, and discover a passion for transparency the minute he isn’t.
Republicans demanded a cognitive test from an 81-year-old Democrat. Where’s the letter for an 80-year-old Republican who tells rallies he overrides his doctor? Democrats called the 2024 questions bad faith and now write letters asking the same questions with a different name on the chart.
The boring standard: same exam, same release, same deadline, for every president, every party. If you’d only demand it from the other side, you don’t care about the president’s health. You care about the polls.
Ask your member of Congress one question: would you vote for a disclosure rule that binds the next president from your own party? Then look up who funds the two loudest doctors in this fight on our Jamie Raskin Money Trail and Ronny Jackson Money Trail. For how both parties handle fakes and real clips, see SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE.
Receipts
- HuffPost, Oct. 5, 2026. Trump in Vandalia, Ohio, Oct. 3: “Leave me alone.”
- Memorandum From the Physician to the President, May 29, 2026 (The American Presidency Project). “Excellent health,” MoCA 30 of 30, low-dose aspirin advice, 22 specialty providers, “authorized the public release.”
- CNN, May 29, 2026. 81 mg guidance; Trump’s 325 mg.
- The Independent, Oct. 18, 2026, summarizing The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 17, 2026. Three-minute rule; two-minute precedent.
- Fox News, Feb. 16, 2024. Jackson letter co-signed by 83 Republicans; “regardless of gender, age, or political party”; Jean-Pierre on no cognitive test; Dr. Nick reply.
- Rep. Jamie Raskin to Capt. Barbabella, April 10, 2026 and June 18, 2026. Cognitive assessment demand; “schoolyard insult”; 22 specialists; third hospital visit in 13 months.
- RealClearPolitics transcript, June 17, 2024 and PolitiFact, June 21, 2024. “Cheap fakes.”
- The Hill, July 9, 2025. Dr. Kevin O’Connor declines to answer.
- Newsweek, Nov. 30, 2025. Walz: “Release the MRI results.”
- Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE. Reader tools: Jamie Raskin Money Trail; Ronny Jackson Money Trail; Money Map and electoral map.
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Originally published on Substack.
