Dr. Harold Bornstein, President Donald Trump‘s longtime personal physician, who declared amid the 2016 election that his patient would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” died Friday, Jan. 8 at the age of 73. Bornstein’s death was announced Thursday in a notice to The New York Times, with neither the cause nor location of his death specified.
The gastroenterologist, who was Trump’s doctor from 1980 to 2017, made headlines in December 2015, when he released a four-paragraph report describing the results of Trump’s medical exams as “astonishingly excellent.” He added in the statement, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
His relationship with Trump came to an abrupt end in 2017 after he told The New York Times that Trump had a prescription for the hair growth drug Propecia, as well as antibiotics for rosacea and a drug to lower his cholesterol. Not long after, in February 2017, the doctor told NBC News that his office was subject to “a raid” by two Trump aides, who confiscated the president’s medical records. The doctor told NBC News in May 2018 that the scene was one of “chaos,” attesting that he felt “raped” by the invasion.
“I feel raped – that’s how I feel,” Bornstein said in the interview. “Raped, frightened, and sad. I couldn’t believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important. And it certainly is not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What’s the matter with that?”
A year after the raid, Bornstein admitted that the medical report he had released on Trump during the 2016 campaign was written by Trump himself. “He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN at the time. “I just made it up as I went along.” He continued that Trump read the contents of the letter to him and he “would tell [Trump] what he couldn’t put in there,” adding, “They came to pick up their letter at 4 o’clock or something.”
Bornstein is survived by wife Melissa Brown, daughter Alix and sons Robyn, Joseph, Jeremee and Jackson. “Dr. Bornstein was a force of nature who brought joy to his family, friends and everyone he encountered in life,” the death notice reads, “and continues to do so in memory.”
