Cheney physician flags 'severe illness' Trump seems to have: 'It's a real problem'

A physician expressed serious concerns about President Donald Trump's physical and mental health ahead of his third medical checkup in in 13 months.Trump, the oldest president to ever be inaugurated, turns 80 next month, and Dr. Jonathan Reiner told "CNN News Central" that he has grave concerns about some specific medical issues that have slipped into public view as the president goes to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a scheduled medical and dental checkup."The president and his team are not legally required to release information to Congress or the public, and I think that really should change," Reiner said. "There are so many roles in our society that require annual assessments of physical capacity. You know, pilots, Secret Service agents, school bus drivers, and for the chief executive of this country and the commander in chief of our armed forces, we should have a clear understanding that the president is fit for duty."The White House has offered little information about the president's health, despite some visible symptoms of apparent age-related health issues."I do want to see this during this examination a credible explanation for his visible health concerns," Reiner said. "His bruising, which initially was described as due to vigorous hand shaking, which is not credible, [and] his severe edema in his ankles, which was described as, you know, chronic venous insufficiency when just three months before, one year ago, he was his examination disclosed that he had no edema, which would then make it acute acute venous insufficiency, which is an entirely different thing."Trump frequently posts on social media late into the night or early in the morning, and Reiner said that's indicative of sleep issues that are deeply concerning."The president has severe daytime somnolence," Reiner said. "He falls asleep very often. He's fallen asleep in the Oval Office on multiple occasions with people talking to him in the Cabinet Room, and was concerned yesterday that he might have fallen asleep at Arlington National Cemetery during Memorial Day observances, and chronic insomnia is a severe illness. It can result in an increase in risk of dementia, decrease in cognitive effects in older people."It's equivalent to about increasing your age by about three and a half years," the physician added. "It increases your cardiac risk of having a heart attack or developing congestive heart failure, and it can produce a decline in your sort of mental functions, like it can increase depression, anxiety, so it's a real problem, and the president appears to struggle to stay awake during the day, and I'd like to hear what the White House has done to evaluate why the president has this increased daytime somnolence and what they're doing to improve that."Reiner, a cardiologist and CNN medical analyst who served as Vice President Dick Cheney's personal heart doctor for more than a decade, has become one of the most prominent medical voices publicly questioning Trump's own fitness for office. - YouTube youtu.be