Trump’s Doctor Sounds Flippant About Donald’s Health — ‘They Can Just Keep Dying’

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By Daniel J. Solomon December 21, 2016

Harold Bornstein, President-elect Donald Trump’s doctor, already seemed a peculiar figure before the election, writing a letter in which he claimed his patient would be the healthiest American leader ever. That impression has been borne out in a recent media interview with the famous physician. “If something happens to him, then it happens to him,” Bornstein, trained as a gastroenterologist and working on the Upper East Side, told Stat News. “It’s like all the rest of us, no? That’s why we have a vice president and a speaker of the House and a whole line of people. They can just keep dying.”

Trump’s doctor attacked Obamacare, discussed his Jewish ancestry and said that he gave Hillary Clinton’s internist, Lisa Bardack, a Trump pin when he ran into her before the election. He described the former Democratic hopeful as an “old lady.”

Bornstein’s greatest rant, however, might have been the press itself. After he was interviewed, he threatened Stat News’ reporter, saying that he would ruin the journalist’s career if the story was published.

“I happen to have known the Sulzbergers for 50 years,” he said, referring to the family that owns The New York Times. “I’m going to make sure you don’t ever work again if you do this.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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