President Donald Trump sought to set the record straight about the medical care he received in October and denied receiving an MRI while at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
In a new interview with the Wall Street Journal released on Thursday, Trump and his doctor said the president underwent a CT scan and that the procedure was mischaracterized as an MRI, a more comprehensive method.
“It wasn’t an MRI,” Trump, 79, said. “It was less than that. It was a scan.”
Trump’s doctor, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella stated in October that the president underwent “advanced imaging” without sharing details, but confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that a CT scan, not an MRI, was performed “to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues” and revealed no abnormalities.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Dec. 1 that Trump had undergone a “preventive” MRI earlier this fall and that he “remains in excellent overall health.”
Trump said in November that he did not know why he underwent the scan but that he would make sure the White House released his “perfect” MRI results. He added that the procedure was a magnetic resonance imaging scan.
“It was just an MRI. … It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it,” Trump said at the time.
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Given the varying accounts, Trump told the Wall Street Journal in late December that he regretted sharing information about his care at Walter Reed.
“In retrospect, it’s too bad I took it because it gave them a little ammunition,” Trump said. “I would have been a lot better off if they didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”