Donald Trump Weight Gain: CNN Expert Calls Out Discrepancies in Medical Memo

Donald Trump has put on 14 pounds since his last physical in April 2025, according to a new White House medical memo released late on Friday, pushing the 79-year-old US president to the brink of clinical obesity and prompting his doctor to advise him to lose weight and exercise more.

For context, Trump's weight has been a point of fascination and speculation throughout his political career, not least because he has long insisted he is in 'excellent health.' His latest figures now place him close to where he was in 2020, during the final year of his first term, when he weighed 244 pounds. Back then, he was already over the line into the obese category. This time, the White House again chose to highlight reassuring language from the presidential physician, even as the small print told a more awkward story.

The three-page memo, signed by Capt Sean Barbabella, Physician to the President, declared that Trump 'remains in excellent health.' Buried within it, however, was the admission that his weight has risen from 224 pounds in April 2025 to 238 pounds this year. At Trump's stated height of 6ft 3in, that gives him a body mass index of 29.7, just a fraction below the 30.0 threshold that doctors widely use to define obesity.

Strictly speaking, BMI is a blunt instrument. It is not a diagnostic tool in itself and, as most clinicians will say, it is only one part of a broader health picture. Yet it is also the baseline measure used in countless surgeries, insurance assessments and national statistics. By that common yardstick, Trump is not just a little overweight. He sits at the very top of the 'overweight' range and has already crossed into obesity once before, when he clocked in at 244 pounds during his previous White House stint.

Donald Trump, 'Excellent Health' And A Heavier Reality

The news came after a year in which Donald Trump has talked repeatedly, and often mockingly, about weight on the campaign trail and at press conferences. He has returned several times to an anecdote about an unnamed 'very fat friend' who he says has been trying, and failing, to slim down with weight-loss drugs bought more cheaply in the UK than in the US.

'I saw him recently and he's actually fatter than ever,' Trump said in January, describing the man as rich and a 'fat slob' in remarks that drew criticism at the time. It is hard to miss the irony: the president is publicly ridiculing someone else's body while his own numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

The White House memo nonetheless struck a relentlessly upbeat tone. Barbabella's letter concluded that Trump is fit to discharge the duties of the presidency, with no limitation noted. The report framed the extra pounds as a manageable concern, saying the president had been advised to lose weight and increase physical activity.

There was, however, a more curious detail that has caught the eye of outside experts. The new memo stated that Trump's ankle oedema, swelling in the ankles that can be linked to circulation or heart issues, had 'improved' compared with last year's exam. That seemingly positive update raised an awkward question. No ankle oedema was recorded in the prior year's report.

CNN Doctor Questions Discrepancies In Trump Medical Memo

Some of the sharpest scrutiny of the document came from Dr Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst and professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine. Posting on X, Reiner highlighted the ankle reference as a glaring inconsistency, asking how a symptom could be listed as 'improved' when it had never previously been acknowledged.

For a president who has a long history of presenting glowing medical summaries, that kind of discrepancy is not a trivial matter. It feeds into a broader suspicion that the public is being shown a heavily curated version of the truth, with flattering language up front and potentially worrying indicators minimised or left off the record until they can be spun as getting better.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Reiner's remarks or on the report's wording. Without further explanation from the president's medical team, it is impossible to know whether the ankle issue was genuinely new, missed last year, or simply documented differently. Nothing in the memo has been independently verified, and, as with any White House health release, the public is being asked to take much of it on trust, so the findings should be treated with a degree of caution.

The politics of the president's weight are not going away. Trump has reportedly been trying to drum up interest in a planned birthday 'cage fight' event with military personnel at the White House, with servicemen and women told they must meet strict fitness requirements. An Air Force memo, cited in US reports, said attendees 'MUST MEET CURRENT WAIST-HEIGHT RATIO and current physical fitness standard.'

That kind of language lands differently when the commander-in-chief himself now sits a whisker away from the obesity line. On paper, Donald Trump's doctor is standing firmly behind him, calling his overall condition 'excellent.' On the scales, the argument is getting harder to sustain.

IBTimes UK has reached out to Donald Trump's reps for comments.