Editorial: Stealth health -- As Harris releases records, Trump's health an open question

This week, at an event billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump spent about 40 minutes standing on stage, mostly wordlessly swaying to music that he’d selected, confusing the press and his fans in attendance.

The odd turn of events and the lack of any reasonable explanation from the campaign — along with a stream of other incidents including Trump losing his train of thought or struggling through certain words — has refocused attention on the simple question of whether the former president is really all there, mentally and health-wise.

Against that backdrop, Kamala Harris has released a medical history and health records, complete with vitals and specifics, which judged the 59-year-old vice president to have the “physical and mental resiliency” to be president.

Trump’s approach has almost been worse than not putting out anything. Despite having endeavored to successfully make Joe Biden’s age and health a significant campaign plank, the last we heard about Trump’s health was a letter posted on his social media accounts almost a year ago by a personal doctor who provided no detail or results, only a vague assessment of “excellent” health.

Then there was the infamous 2015 letter by personal physician Dr. Harold Bornstein, who would later say that Trump had dictated the letter and then sent men to his office unannounced to seize Trump’s medical records.

This is, obviously, not the behavior of someone with nothing to hide. Even under normal circumstances, there would be considerable questions surrounding a 78-year-old major party nominee, who if elected would become the oldest person ever to assume the presidency. Trump has given the American public little reason to grant him the benefit of the doubt.

The public deserves to know about Trump’s physical and mental fitness, not just as a symbolic matter but a dire practical one. When he got COVID in 2020 and had to be put on oxygen, it was a matter of highest national concern, even though the Trump White House tried to downplay the seriousness of his condition, which put him in Walter Reed Army Medical Center for three nights.

These are not considerations that should come down to guesswork (which, by the way, includes experts attempting to diagnose Trump from afar, and who aren’t helping here). Trump owes it to voters to be transparent about his health, not that he’s ever felt much of a degree of responsibility even to his own base.

The candidate’s health records aren’t the only documents missing from the public domain. Don’t forget that Trump has never published his tax returns. He didn’t do it when he ran in 2016, like every other contender. He didn’t do it for the four years he was in the Oval Office. And he’s not done it in this, his third run for the White House. Harris made her 1040s public every year she’s been VP, including this year.

As with his never-released tax returns, Trump seems all too happy to break with past expectations while constantly promising he’ll abide, someday. He won’t, because he believes he gets to do as he wishes and no one should question him. But between now and Nov. 5 is when he is supposed to answer the questions of Americans.

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