The White House issued a stark rebuke on Tuesday evening of a report suggesting that President Donald Trump could be the one “well connected,” 79-year-old man who requested an unreleased weight loss drug from the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai put out a statement denying that the single approval of Eli Lilly’s highly-anticipated weight loss drug retatrutide was for Trump, after STAT news reported that the company gave out a “compassionate use” approval of the drug to one person.
“Because this has to be spelled out for @LizzyLaw_, who has proven herself to be an unserious gossip columnist, this application was not for the President,” Desai wrote, tagging in STAT reporter Lizzy Lawrence.
The report detailed that a senior official at the National Institutes of Health put in an application in April to treat a “well connected,” per the report, patient with refractory obesity, who also dealt with sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension, with the Food and Drug Administration giving the go-ahead on the application.
“Sources told STAT that application drew interest from top health officials. Given the demographics and the peculiar nature of the application, I asked the WH if this patient was President Trump, who turned 80 a week ago. I did not get a direct answer,” Lawrence wrote on X.
The FDA has not yet approved retatrutide, Eli Lilly’s experimental drug which has shown to decrease body weight at similar levels to gastric bypass surgery, and has publicly warned against the use of unapproved versions of compounded GLP-1 drugs. The drug, which may help users maintain muscle mass better than other GLP-1s, has sparked buzz online and anticipation among people awaiting its possible FDA approval.
In his latest May 2026 physical, Trump, who stands at 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighed 238 pounds, making his body mass index around 29.7, which is in the overweight category and under the 30 BMI threshold for obesity. Trump has often joked about GLP-1s, calling in “the fat drug,” just as recently as Tuesday.
Trump told the New York Times in January that he has never taken a GLP-1 himself but that he “probably should.”
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A spokesperson for Eli Lilly told the Washington Examiner that they “do not comment on the specifics of individual cases.”
“Lilly’s expanded access policy is available on our website,” the Eli Lilly spokesperson said, pointing to their expanded or compassionate use webpage. “In rare situations, when individuals can’t join a clinical trial and have run out of treatment options, Lilly may provide an investigational medicine in coordination with a requesting physician. We make these decisions following all applicable regulations.”