By Sarah Owermohle, Jacqueline Howard, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump wants to tamp down on public debates about his health.
The oldest president to assume office has been dogged by questions about recent doctors’ visits, bruises on his hands and whether he’s fallen asleep during public events.
Trump dismissed these concerns in an apparently impromptu interview with the Wall Street Journal this week, in which he blamed the visible bruises on a high daily dose of aspirin — more than his doctors recommend — and said he has plenty of energy.
The president, who for years criticized former President Joe Biden’s age and cognitive health, followed up Friday with a Truth Social post saying he had aced his “third straight” cognitive test.
But the disclosures have done little to quell reemerging scrutiny of his health.
In fact, here are five questions his most recent health disclosures have raised.
First, who is Trump’s doctor, Sean Barbabella?
The physician overseeing Trump’s care and the recent pronouncement of exceptional health is Dr. Sean Barbabella, a Navy captain who was named to the role in March. Barbabella specialized in combat trauma and emergency care while in the military. He has defended Trump’s recent advance medical imaging and a semiannual physical this year as routine screening and care.
He is the latest in a line of personal physicians who have praised Trump’s physical health and cognition.
When Trump entered his first term, he kept on Dr. Ronny Jackson, who had served as President Barack Obama’s personal physician and grew to be one of Trump’s close personal advisers after a glowing news conference about the then-45th president’s “incredible genes.”
Jackson stepped down from his White House role in March 2018 when Trump nominated him to lead the Veterans Affairs Department. But he withdrew his nomination a month later amid allegations about his professional conduct while in the White House. He now serves in the House of Representatives as a Republican from Texas.
Jackson was followed by Dr. Sean Conley, a Navy emergency physician who in 2019 said that Trump was “in very good health” and that he expected the president “will remain so for the duration of his Presidency, and beyond.”
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Conley prescribed hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that had gained popularity among conservatives as an alternative — though unproven— therapy to aid against infection from the virus, as a preventive measure for Trump. In October 2020, when Trump contracted Covid-19, Conley oversaw his treatment.
The White House physicians were preceded by Dr. Harold Bornstein, Trump’s longtime personal physician in New York City. During his first presidential campaign, Bornstein proclaimed in an effusive letter that Trump “will be healthiest individual ever elected” president.
Bornstein later claimed that Trump dictated that letter to him over the phone. After the election, he said Trump officials raided his office for the president’s personal medical records, an account disputed by administration officials who said it was a routine handover of his private records.
Bornstein told The New York Times at the time that the encounter took place two days after a February 2017 interview in which he told NBC News that the president takes Propecia, a prostate drug often prescribed for hair loss.
What are the risks of taking high-dose aspirin daily?
The president said he takes a higher dose of aspirin than recommended by his do