Jake Tapper has lastly accused the White House of hiding the reality about Donald Trump’s health.

“There is something going on with his health that they’re not telling us,” Tapper judged on NCS’s The Lead Thursday after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave a bizarre explanation for the president’s bruised hand.

Jake Tapper talks Donald Trump’s health on CNN.
Tapper led a panel on The Lead stating flaws in Karoline Leavitt’s clarification for Trump’s bandages and bruises. NCS

According to Leavitt, the bruising that seems seemingly in a single day is as a result of occupational hazards of being in cost.

“The President is literally constantly shaking hands. The Oval Office is like Grand Central Terminal. He is meeting with more people than any of you even know about on a daily basis,” she stated.

“He’s also on a daily aspirin regimen, which is something his physical examinations has said in the past as well, which can contribute to that bruising that we see.”

Jake Tapper talks Donald Trump’s health on CNN.
The press secretary informed the Daily Beast that Trump gained his bruises as a result of he shakes so many fingers, however the panel felt the reality was being hidden. NCS

While the NCS anchor had not beforehand commented on 79-year-old Trump’s well being, Tapper, who himself wrote a book about Joe Biden’s declining well being, lastly spoke as much as say that he didn’t hear the ring of fact in Leavitt’s clarification.

“First of all, we haven’t seen bruising like this on the hands of other presidents who also presumably shake a lot of hands, or senators,” he identified.

The anchor later added that the White House blamed bruising on handshaking again in July, regardless of Trump himself saying that he doesn’t like shaking hands as a greeting.

U.S. President Donald Trump wears adhesive bandages on the back of his hand during a meeting of his cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 02, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Trump has been noticed with bruising, adhesives, and make-up on his proper hand for months, alongside elevating concern after admitting to present process an MRI. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republican Alyssa Farrah Griffin appeared equally unconvinced by the occasion line, and urged that the administration wanted to offer a transparent assertion concerning the president’s medical standing.

“These questions are going to continue to dog him. These questions that the public has about this MRI that he got. I think that there’s going to have to be a better answer,” she stated.

“What happens with this, we’ve seen it before, is the rumors and the speculation must take on a life of their own if there’s not some sort of a clear medical answer.”

David Axelrod likened the scenario to former President Joe Biden’s health struggles, which weren’t made public. “How about the truth? How about facts? That would be good,” he stated, after asserting that questions “should be raised now because clearly something’s going on.”

“Yes. And—and obviously, you know, Biden is—what happened with Biden is instructive. We need to know more,” Tapper said.

The newly released book "Original Sin" about Joe Biden's mental and physical fitness during his run for a second term as president, is displayed at a Manhattan bookstore on May 20, 2025 in New York City. The book, which accuses a small group of the former president's friends and aides of hiding his deteriorating health, comes as Biden has announced that he has cancer.
Tapper said that Biden’s own health issues were ‘instructive’ in Trump’s case, after a small group hid the reality of Biden’s health from the public while he was in office. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Tapper was speaking from experience, having published the book Original Sin alongside fellow journalist Alex Thompson earlier this year. In the book, the duo claims that a small group within the White House knew that Biden was not fit for office but did not share that information with American citizens.

One tract from the book reads: “Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify trying to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years.”



Sources