Biden 'Continues to Be Fit for Duty,' His Doctor Says, after President Undergoes Annual Physical

President Joe Biden “continues to be fit for duty,” his doctor wrote Wednesday after conducting an annual physical that is being closely watched as the 81-year-old seeks reelection in November.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden's physician, wrote that the president is adjusting well to a new device that helps control his sleep apnea and has experienced some hip discomfort but also works out five times per week, The Associated Press said.
“President Biden is a healthy, active, robust, 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,” O’Connor said in a six-page memo on the president’s health, following a physical that took Biden to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for more than 2 1/2 hours.
His memo added that Biden “feels well and this year's physical identifies no new concerns.”
The oldest president in US history, Biden would be 86 by the end of a second term, should he win one. His latest physical mirrored one he had in February last year when O'Connor described Biden as “healthy, vigorous” and “fit” to handle his White House duties.
Still, voters are approaching this year’s election with misgivings about Biden’s age, having scrutinized his gaffes, his coughing, his slow walking and even a tumble off his bicycle.
After he returned to the White House on Wednesday, Biden attended an event on combating crime and suggested that when it came to his health “everything is squared away” and "there is nothing different than last year.”
He also joked about his age and people thinking "I look too young.”
Former President Donald Trump, 77, is the favorite to lock up the Republican nomination later this month, which would bring him closer to a November rematch against Biden. Trump was 70 when he took office in 2017, which made him the oldest American president to be inaugurated — until Biden broke his record by being inaugurated at 78 in 2021.
O'Connor's report said that Biden’s stiff walking was no worse than last year and was the result of arthritic changes in his spine. He said the president also noted “some increased left hip discomfort.” There were no signs of stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or other similar conditions in what the report called an “extremely detailed neurologic exam.”
Biden, last summer, began using a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine at night to help with sleep apnea, and O'Connor wrote that the president had responded well to that treatment and is “diligently compliant" about using it.
A recent special counsel’s report on the investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents repeatedly derided Biden's memory, calling it “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.” It also noted that Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.
Still, addressing reporters the evening of the report's release, Biden said "my memory is fine” and grew visibly angry as he denied forgetting when his son died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that O’Connor was one of a team of 20 different medical specialists who helped complete the physical.
Asked why Biden wasn't undergoing a cognitive test as part of the physical, Jean-Pierre said that O'Connor and Biden's neurologist “don't believe he needs one.”
“He passes a cognitive test every day, every day as he moves from one topic to another topic, understanding the granular level of these topics,” Jean-Pierre said, noting that Biden tackled such diverse issues as Wednesday's crime prevention event before his planned trip to the US-Mexico border on Thursday and next week's State of the Union address.
“This is a very rigorous job," she added.
That picture of the president doesn’t reflect the type of struggles with routine tasks that might indicate the need for further tests, said Dr. Michael Rosenbloom, a neurologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
“Constantly questioning older folks who may have an occasional lapse is a form of ageism,” Rosenbloom said.
From sleep apnea to arthritis, Biden’s health report “seems pretty run of the mill for an 81-year-old person,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Linder, chief of general internal medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
“His doctors are in a unique position to assess his cognitive ability on a daily basis,” Linder said. "These doctors are able to see how he’s functioning day to day. That’s much more useful” than a cognitive assessment.
Many Americans, including Democrats, have expressed reservations about Biden seeking a second term during this fall's election. Only 37% of Democrats say Biden should pursue reelection, down from 52% before the 2022 midterm elections, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden counters that his age brings wisdom, and he has begun to criticize Trump for the former president’s recent public gaffes.
The president joked that his age was classified information and suggested during a taping in New York on Monday of “Late Night With Seth Meyers ″ that Trump mistakenly called his wife Melania, “Mercedes” during a weekend speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference -- though the Trump campaign says he was correctly referring to political commentator Mercedes Schlapp.
Trump has indeed had his share of verbal miscues, mixing up the city and state where he was campaigning, calling Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the leader of Turkey and repeatedly mispronouncing the militant group Hamas as “hummus.” More recently, he confused his Republican primary rival Nikki Haley with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
While he was president, Trump's annual physical in 2019 revealed that he had gained weight and was up to 243 pounds. With his 6-foot, 3-inch frame, that meant Trump's Body Mass Index was 30.4. An index rating of 30 is the level at which doctors consider someone obese under this commonly used formula.
Wednesday's report listed Biden as 6-foot tall and weighing 178 pounds.

Tropical storm Gaemi brought rain to central China on Saturday as it moved inland after making landfall at typhoon strength on the country's east coast Thursday night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no reports of casualties or major damage. Eight people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn't strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 34, authorities there said Friday. The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

China Gaemi weakened to a tropical storm since coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.

About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country's northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Taiwan Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan. Some towns remained inundated with waist-deep water.

Eight people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 850 people were injured and one person was missing, the emergency operations center said.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south Friday, President Lai Ching-te commended the city's efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of $20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

A cargo ship sank off the coast near Kaohsiung Harbor during the typhoon, and the captain's body was later pulled from the water, the Central News Agency said. A handful of other ships were beached by the storm.

Philippines At least 34 people died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier in the week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.

Biden 'Continues to Be Fit for Duty,' His Doctor Says, after President Undergoes Annual Physical