Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is trying to capitalize on a lack of health information shared by her rival. Candidates are often selective about what they choose to share.
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Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is trying to highlight her relative youthfulness, at 59, as she takes on former President Donald J. Trump, who is 78.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign plans to release a report on her medical history and health information, a move to contrast the 59-year-old Democrat with former President Donald J. Trump, her 78-year-old rival, who has shared little recent information about his health.
A senior campaign aide, sharing the information on the condition of anonymity to preview the plans, said the report, expected on Saturday, would show that Ms. Harris had the “physical and mental resiliency” to carry out her duties should she win the election in November.
Because presidential candidates are under no requirement to share health records — their medical information is as private as any other citizen’s — campaign-season medical reports are often used to paint the rosiest picture possible of a person running for office. With only weeks until Election Day, Ms. Harris’s campaign will no doubt try to use whatever information she shares to ignite questions about her opponent’s health.
Mr. Trump, the oldest person to become a presidential nominee, has declined requests to release new information about his health even though he has promised to. When he was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet at a rally over the summer, his campaign did not provide a briefing, release hospital records or make the emergency physicians who treated him available for interviews.
As president, Mr. Trump was hospitalized in 2020 when he contracted Covid-19, and his doctors at the time did not share the full extent of his illness with the public. The limited information about his health contrasts with the picture his former physician shared of him as a candidate in 2015, declaring that he would be “the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency.”
Mr. Trump told CBS News in August that he would “very gladly” release his medical records to the public, but did not respond to a request from The New York Times for that information. The Times also requested Ms. Harris’s health records last month, as well as an interview with her physician. The campaign did not respond.
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Source: nytimes.com
