“[Trump] dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there,” Dr. Harold Bornstein told CNN. | Joe Marino/NY Daily News via Getty Images President's former doctor claims Trump dictated flattering health letter

The president’s former doctor said that Donald Trump dictated a letter released during the 2016 presidential campaign cycle that described Trump’s health as “astonishingly good” and “extraordinary.”

“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Dr. Harold Bornstein told CNN of the letter, which was the only medical information released in 2015 by Trump’s presidential campaign. “I just made it up as I went along.”


The four-paragraph letter raised eyebrows at the time of its release because its language mirrored the type of hyperbole Trump is known for. Bornstein said last August that he had written the letter in just five minutes while a limo sent by Trump waited outside.

“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” Bornstein’s letter read. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

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On Tuesday, Bornstein said that Trump had actually supplied the wording of the letter to him as the doctor and his wife drove through Manhattan’s Central Park. He characterized the letter as “black humor” and said it was “like the movie ‘Fargo’: It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction.”

“[Trump] dictated the letter, and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there,” he said. “They came to pick up their letter at 4 o’clock or something.”

The White House did not immediately respond for comment.

Bornstein has re-entered the public eye this week after telling MSNBC that Trump’s longtime personal body guard Keith Schiller and two other men conducted a “raid” on his office in February 2017 to seize the president’s medical records.