CNN anchor Jake Tapper is skeptical of the official explanation from the White House regarding President Donald Trump’s bandaged hand, suggesting on “The Lead” that there may be more to the president’s health situation than what is being disclosed.
Tapper delved into the issue with CNN’s chief political analyst David Axelrod and former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Trump wears the bandages due to “constantly shaking hands.”
“The White House provided the same explanation for bruising back in July,” Tapper said Thursday. “Obviously, he’s 79 years old. And there is something going on with his health that they’re not telling us, because otherwise, why did he have that MRI?”
Trump underwent a second “yearly” check-up at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in October, where he later claimed the results were “outstanding” but admitted he had “no idea what they analyzed.”
Axelrod pointed out the lack of transparency from the administration, calling it “a common theme.”
“A lot of extraordinary things have happened when the president of the United States has an MRI and can’t remember or name what part of the body the MRI was about,” he told Tapper. “There are questions, there are issues here.”
“And the question is whether the American people deserve to know,” he continued. “They were raised relative to [former President Joe] Biden, [and] they should be raised now, because clearly something’s going on.”
Tapper reminded his guests that Trump is an open germaphobe who has publicly admitted that he doesn’t like shaking hands and asked them how much confidence they have in the official hand-shaking explanation about his bandages.
