Bulwark Takes - Just Say It: Trump is Unwell

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Donald Trump turns 80 next month, but Democrats still seem reluctant to make his age and health a political issue. Sam Stein and Lauren Egan give their takes on the questions about Trump’s bruised hands, dentist visits, public appearances, and why the overall transparency about Trump's health hasn't become a bigger story even after Republicans spent years relentlessly attacking Joe Biden over age and decline. Plus: Sam attempts to test Trump’s concealer explanation himself.Read more from Lauren's reporting: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/democrats-trump-aging-elderly-very-old-hands-makeupText TAKES to 64000 for your 2 free gifts with the purchase of any Pocket Hose Ballistic hose. By Texting 64000, you agree to receive recurring automated marketing messages from Pocket Hose. Message frequency varies and data rates may apply. Text STOP at any time to opt out. Text HELP for additional Information. No purchase required. Terms apply, available at https://PocketHose.com/terms.

Hey, everyone. It's me, Sam Stein. I'm managing out of the book. I'm here with Lauren Egan, and we're here to talk about her new newsletter about Democrats, Trump's health, and why are they not doing more with it? Lauren, thanks for joining. Appreciate it. Why are you smiling? No reason. Okay, good. So tell us a bit about what the newsletter says. Are you smiling, Lauren? My newsletter is about, look, we have all seen the signs of Donald Trump growing older. He turns 80 next month. He has some weird bruising on his hands, which we've covered here at the bulwark. And not only that, he has fallen asleep in the oval or appeared to fall asleep in the oval, I should say.

That was like an extended blink, I thought. Yes. It's in the eye of the beholder, as they say. There are a few other things. He's been to the dentist three times so far this year. He had an MRI last year, but didn't really tell us why. I, it's, he's not transparent about his health, which is obviously not exactly like a new thing for presidents. But after Biden, there's, you know, we have all these questions now.

And he is, he's old. But I was interested that Democrats really weren't talking about this a bunch. You know, if the goal here is to make Trump look as weak as possible going into midterms, trying to hit him for some of these things as, you know, painting him to be kind of frail and decaying might be a, route you might take, but they're not really doing that. So my newsletter explores, oh, what was that? Nothing. Go ahead.

What did your newsletter expire? Why Democrats aren't talking about it. Maybe one is because it's not terribly abnormal to pancake your hands. That seems like a type of thing anyone would do. And what's going on there? One hand, might have the issue, but the other hand can have an issue too. Okay. It looks like you took white out and just put it on your hands. I didn't get it all.

Oh, you got a blender too. Well, sometimes you got to cover it up and that's what you do. This is normal. This is normal behavior. Uh-huh. So you also have extensive bruising on your hands. When you shake a lot of hands like I do during the course of the day, sometimes, yeah, this is what happens. So one.

I find someone to go shake a bunch of hands. We did. We found Jared. Yeah. And what happened? And bruising? No bruising? Jared shook 300 hands in the course of several hours.

And he said it was tough on his hands. I will say this. One hand, maybe a lot of bruising. Two hands, you're not shaking people's hands like this. Yeah. There's a lot of questions. Yeah, there are some questions. And on a more serious note, it's curious why they're not doing this.

If you could take me seriously with this. Because what we just lived through two years ago was an extensive, very aggressive, and frankly, you know, substance-supported campaign against Joe Biden for being old and frail and not being on top of his game. There's plenty of fodder to go after Trump. Now, of course, he's more public than Biden was and we have to do all this. He's definitely more engaged than Biden was. He's definitely talking to the press more than Biden was.

And he's got this kind of presence about him. I think Jonathan Lemuel colleague wrote about this today where it's like he does fill up a room because that's who he is. But that's not the same as being with it. And yet Democrats seem to be, I don't know, a little bit reluctant to do so. So why when you talk to them? There's two reasons. The first is because of Biden. I mean, that wasn't all that long ago, obviously.

And there's a sense that if they were, so many of them didn't say anything when the whole country was watching Biden, very visible. decline. He was not the same person he was in 2022 as he was when he first came in at the beginning of 2021. And there was a sense that it would just be hypocritical to turn around, you know, just a couple of years later and start criticizing Trump for some of these same things. So there's a real discomfort. It's like the Biden hangover. I mean, you know. That's very typical. It's like, oh, we can't. We're too, we're too inconsistent. Well, I think that that's, right. It's very, not to get into the psyche of Democrats, but sure. Like that's how they think about these things.

And then the second part is that their party is also pretty old. This has been a whole theme of this past year about, you know, the gerontocracy and trying to get younger candidates in there this cycle. And there's been some change in that. But, you know, like Chuck Schumer is only a couple years younger. Yeah, but Trump was like one year or two years younger than Biden. He made a big old deal about it. He still does to this day.

Like literally yesterday, he's like, I signed a bill, Biden couldn't do that. Right. But I think that goes to like the presence that Trump has. I mean, if Chuck Schumer were to turn around and do that, like, would you really start to buy that? I mean, the man like, yeah, exactly. Like, there just isn't the equivalent of that in the Democratic Party right now. Sure. Well, I will say there are some people who are doing it.

So the DNC is trying. They're for sure younger. The people that are doing it. And the DNC. The DNC is like being, you know, kind of spicy in their Twitter account. and in their TikTok account. I think the problem for them is that their stuff just doesn't pop off in the way that it did with the RNC back in the Biden administration.

Right. I mean, I remember covering the White House, the RNC would clip something that Biden would do. And they for sure would clip it in a very... R&C research. Yes. They would selectively edit some of their stuff to make Biden look a little more aimless than maybe he actually did when you were in person with him.

But the point being, they would clip something. It would go viral. And basically the national press corps of people covering the White House would, it would force these kinds of stories, you know, into the mix. And people covered it in a very different way than I think tends to happen right now. This ad is brought to you by pocketos. Well, look, you know how much I love the pocket hose. I'm not going to pull it out of the drawer, but it's there.

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takes to 64,000. That's takes to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text takes to 64,000 message and data rates may apply. I'm wondering if there's something like, I'm not trying to excuse it, but, you know, maybe they just don't want to fight the last fight, right? Like it's, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, that was two years ago. But right now, what we really care about is cost of living. Yeah. Well, I guess that was two years ago, too. I mean, I think that's right. And I think with any of these things, you talk to people and they fundamentally just think that the only thing that's really going to matter this election cycle is affordability. And they're just comfortable sticking to that and not really getting outside that lane, especially on something like this. I guess we have to talk about some of the conspiracies or accusations in the article about why this isn't resonating. And one of them was offered by near Tandon that the media's

simply just holds Democrats to a different standard than Republicans and that the press just doesn't cover Trump the same way. Not sure I agree with it necessarily, but maybe there's something there. What was her case? I think there's something to what she's saying. There was some, like, Media Matters did a few studies during the 2024 campaign that Biden's age was covered more than Trump was, which, I mean, you can like kind of make an argument for some of that, like Biden was in office, Trump, you know, whatever. You can you can talk yourself around that. But I think what she's missing or where I think this argument kind of falls flat is that Democrats sometimes, they like to complain that media isn't covering this, the media isn't covering that, but sometimes failed to recognize it. They do have a role to play in that.

They can force the issue. They can do things to get it into the front page of the New York Times or Washington Post. In a way that Republicans really understand that sometimes. And Democrats, they like to play referee and they think that like guilting you will, like, change something as opposed to. to trying to shift their strategy a little bit and force people to cover some of these things. I can get along with that. And I get that. It's like sort of to go back even further, like the Hillary Clinton email stuff, it's like if you just hammer it every single day and all the time you're talking about her data and email retention snafus and like suddenly it gets forced into

the front page because it's just all they're talking about. Meanwhile, Trump's like taking documents to his bathroom in Mar-a-Lago. And no one seems to notice that everyone's on signal. And who knows what kind of government retention policies they're practicing, if any, at the White House. And, you know, Democrats aren't pushing that. And maybe that's just because there's so many things to push, like, or information overload, right? Yeah. And I think that's always been the challenge with covering Trump is there are only so many people covering this White House.

There's only so many hours in day they all have. Like, you do have to make editorial choices. And if Democrats aren't out there forcing this, it's just an easy easier decision when there's all the corruption issues, everything else there is to cover. You understand why age might not always be top of mind. But I totally understand why some Democrats feel frustrated and feel like there is an imbalance between the coverage of Trump and his age and Biden. Now there was an episode where Trump kind of disappeared from public view for a couple days, right? I forgot about what the reason was he did it. Maybe was Epstein related.

I forget what the actual context was. It was a holiday weekend, so, you know. Was that it? Yeah. Maybe. So this is basically the pattern that happens, though. It's like something will happen. He'll, like, not be around for a couple days.

Or he'll get a picture, a particularly pancakeed hand. Or he'll, like, have a swollen ankle or he'll, like, doze off while RFK is talking about fertility. or something like that. And everyone's like, oh, my God, he's aging and he's old. And people need to focus more on this. And then there are people, the White House will come back and be like, you fucking hack, and then Trump will come out and be like, I'm not dead.

You're a loser. And then they'll suddenly go away. And so this is just the pattern, right? Right. I think it was Memorial Day last year. Really? Like a year ago? It was some warm weather long weekend.

Sure. And he's just playing golf. Yeah, it doesn't matter which one. He was playing golf. He was disappeared. And like TikTok, like convince itself that Trump was dead. And it wasn't just that he was sick. He was dead.

He was dead. And then whatever, we come back from the holiday weekend. And then Trump goes out and talks to the reporters next day at the White House. And it's like, I'm alive. And kind of like makes fun of everyone a little bit. And that's the thing is like, in a way that Biden didn't, like Biden would not have done that and didn't come out really and engage and shut rumors down or, you know, kind of like do something to really make people believe that he was in fact fine. He put out to it being like, look at this ice cream I'm about to eat.

Exactly. I look at this video with like 18 edit cuts. Soft food, really convincing. It just doesn't work. Just doesn't work. Oh, man. Let me ask you a question. Do you think, like, I think, yeah, but like, people still care about age and vitality, right?

Like, this could be a winning issue for Democrats if they want it. Totally. I think people care a lot about it. I think that's kind of the point of this piece is, like, it could be an issue. Democrats could make this an issue, but there's all these things that are kind of tripping them up. And, you know, you talked to, like some democratic strategists who are just like, it's too bad because this is a real card we could play. but we just aren't playing it, and that's that. All right.

Well, we'll see what happens. The one person who did say something right before we were about to publish a piece was Gavin Newsom, who put up this tweet. As you can see, he's at least playing hardball on this stuff, but not others, or not many others, I should say. There's a few here and there. Last question. How do I get this off? What do I do? Oh, my God.

Do you own makeup remover? No, we bought just makeup. Am I going to be living with this for a little bit? Yeah. Yeah. Work? So soap and water could work. But you really need some, you really need some makeup removal.

I put a lot on. So Trump just goes around like this and that's it. Here's my question is I don't understand how it doesn't get on other people when he's like actually shaking hands or like I guess it doesn't really touch people. You don't shake the back of the hand. You just do this. But you like can class someone's hand. I disagree. And also it's pretty like dry at this point.

I'm screwed. This is not going to come off. Wow. Yours is really. Okay. What kind do you get? That is really dry. This take is brought to you by elf makeup.

Sixty-hour camo concealer. Oh, boy. Okay, I got to figure this one out. Okay, well, good luck. Let's wash this off. Thank you. I appreciate it. Lauren, thank you for everything.

Appreciate it. This is like the lengths I go to for a good video. I hope people appreciate that and subscribe to the feed in exchange from me putting myself through this humiliation. Thank you. Take care. Talk to you later.