Donald Trump doesn’t drink or smoke and often boasts of being in excellent health, contrasting his vigor to that of his “low energy” opponents.
The 74-year-old US president has every chance of making a swift and complete recovery from the coronavirus, yet it remains a formidable and unpredictable enemy.
During the Republican primaries of 2016, he famously called rival Jeb Bush a man of “low energy,” a description he now applies to his Democratic opponent, former vice president Joe Biden — or more often “Sleepy Joe.”
In the last election campaign, he asserted that Hillary Clinton lacked “the mental and physical stamina” to become president and tried to portray her as partial to frequent naps.
Not only has Trump reprised similar attacks against Biden in 2020, but he’s gone on to mock his fellow septuagenarian’s stricter use of face masks as a sign of frailty.
“He shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen!” Trump said at this week’s debate. The president also frequently suggests his opponent may be suffering from dementia and has said Biden “doesn’t know he’s alive.”
By contrast, Trump uses hyperbole to describe his own supposedly superb physical health, mental acuity and genes.
In 2015, his campaign released a letter claiming Trump’s lab results were “astonishingly excellent” and he would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” His physician later said Trump dictated the letter.
The president is also an avid golfer — an activity that provides moderate intensity physical activity — despite his reported penchant for taking mulligans.
But his decades-long reputation as a germophobe, who hates shaking hands and compulsively washes his own, is at striking odds with his aversion to wearing a mask: he was first seen with one on July 11, long after his own health officials had recommended their routine use.