A former cardiologist for former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a blunt assessment on President Donald Trump's bizarre aspirin regimen, blasting his explanation as "nonsense" — and suggesting something nefarious must've happened to warrant a team of medical doctors studying the president.
Jonathan Reiner, CNN medical analyst and interventional cardiologist, joined "The Lead" on Thursday with fill-in host Phil Mattingly to discuss a wild Wall Street Journal report in which the president said he takes 325 mg a day of aspirin to prevent a heart attack.
During the interview, Reiner was asked to follow up on his remarks last month that he was seriously concerned about Trump's health. Reiner repeated his top concern that the public has received almost no "meaningful" information about the president's health.
Trump underwent a comprehensive physical exam in April at Walter Reed, where doctors listed "a bunch of studies" which were "essentially all normal" and said the president was in "great" health, Reiner said.
Over the summer, Trump subsequently developed greatly swollen ankles, however, prompting another series of tests. The fact that it wasn't mentioned during the comprehensive exam led Reiner to believe the condition wasn't chronic — it was acute.
"And then something happened in the fall," he said. "Something happened in October that prompted an off-cycle series of tests by the president's medical team." In releasing those results to the public, the White House used what Reiner called euphemisms to describe the tests he underwent, such as "advanced imaging," without elaborating.
Later, Trump said he got an MRI, but didn't elaborate. And on Thursday, that appeared to be incorrect.
"Now we learn the president didn't have an MRI. He actually had a CT scan, which explains why the president's physician didn't describe the test after the president disclosed his MRI, because he didn't have an MRI," said Reiner, specifying it appears Trump underwent a noninvasive cardiac CT scan to determine if he has any coronary artery disease.
The president's doctor told the Wall Street Journal that the tests looked great — but that doesn't align with what Dr. Ronnie Jackson said in 2018, when he said Trump had a marker of coronary artery disease.
Later in the interview, Reiner was asked about Trump's wild aspirin regimen, in which he claimed to take a daily dose doctors use to treat patients currently having a heart attack. Trump's explanation that he takes the heavy dose to keep his blood "nice and thin" flowing through his heart makes no sense, said Reiner.
"That makes no sense. That actually makes nonsense," he said.
Reiner said doctors use anti-coagulants to prevent clotting, but they don't thin the blood; they make people less likely to clot.
"It's not like changing something from gumbo to chicken soup," he said.
To boot, there's no benefit in terms of preventing a heart attack or stroke in taking aspirin for people over 70. Instead, they're at risk of significant bleeding.