In a brief letter released Friday by the White House, Conley promised fuller results to come, but he wanted to make something clear right away.
"While the reports and recommendations are being finalised, I am happy to announce that the President of the United States is in very good health and I anticipate he will remain so for the duration of his Presidency, and beyond," the memo from Conley states.
Whatever the actual state of Trump's health is, that's quite the prediction. Trump will be president for at least two more years, assuming he finishes his first term. But if he wins re-election in 2020, he could still be president for six more years, when he will be 78 years old. Conley is saying he even expects Trump to be "very" healthy "beyond" that date.
Talking about what could happen between now and then is morbid, and I'm not going to do it here. But suffice it to say, that's a very long period of time over which to be predicting nothing impacting Trump's "very good health" - about one-tenth of Trump's entire life span to this point, in fact. Things can happen that all the medical tests in the world could never see coming, and they're much more likely to happen when you are in your 70s.
"That speculation is both unnecessary and smacks of politically rosy glasses skewing age and weight and diet," said Arthur Caplan, an expert on medical ethics at New York University, said of Conley's prediction. "We need to know is Trump capable of the office now - not in his second term."
Caplan added that there was "no ethical prohibition" on predicting a patient's good health in the years to come, "but rash speculation shaped by political matters is not exemplary professionalism."
To be clear, this is not Bornstein-level hyperbole, nor does to seem to be on quite the same level as Jackson. But it is a curious inclusion for a president whose past doctors seemed to have felt compelled - or in Bornstein's case, claims he actually was compelled (he says Trump literally dictated the letter) - to paint as optimistic a picture of Trump's health as possible. This can't be a coincidence.
We still don't seem to have a truly sober and measured verdict of the health for our oldest newly elected president ever. We'll see if Conley actually gives us one moving forward.
