Trump Yet Again Claims He's The 'Healthiest' Modern President (Obama's Abs Would Like A Word)

President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of Naval officers to celebrate the U.S. Navy's 250th birthday in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday, October 5, and somehow found a way to celebrate himself. In his speech, given amid a government shutdown, he promised military officers Congress would approve funding for their salaries (their pay was frozen on September 30 pending Congressional approval), blamed Democrats for the shutdown, and declared himself healthier than former presidents George W. Bush and even Barack Obama (who was ranked as one of the 18 sexiest men alive by Revolt earlier this year and topped BetUS' list of sexiest presidents last year).

This claim was reportedly made by Texas U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Navy veteran and medical doctor who worked with the White House Medical Unit during Bush and Obama's presidencies and later became Trump's chief medical adviser. In a clip of the speech circulating on X, Trump boasts: "At a press conference, they asked him, 'Who's in the best shape? Who's the healthiest? Who's the strongest? Who's the best physical specimen of the three?' He said, 'That's easy: President Donald Trump.' And I said, 'I love this guy.'" 

Trump tries to goad the Navy into booing "Barack Hussein Obama" but is met mostly with silence pic.twitter.com/RONmjQglzB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 5, 2025

Trump made similar claims in November 2024 at a Mar-a-Lago gala, but Jackson never actually declared Trump healthier than Bush or Obama. Newsweek fact-checked the claim at the time and said the 79-year-old might be confusing the words of his personal physician, Harold Bornstein, with Jackson's. In 2015, Bornstein wrote,  "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. Bornstein later claimed Trump dictated the language of the letter. Jackson has declined to compare the health of the three men, but has called Trump's overall health "excellent."

Newsweek's 2024 fact check of President Donald Trump's claim that he was healthier than Barack Obama uncovered facts that suggest the opposite is true in some areas. The annual medical exam conducted by Rep. Ronny Jackson for each president he served under had Obama's BMI at 22.8 when he left office. Trump's BMI after his first term as president was 29.9, which is between "overweight" and "obese." And, while there are flaws with measuring health according to BMI, Newsweek reported that Trump's cholesterol increased from 169 in 2017 to 223, and his level of "bad"  cholesterol went from 94 to 143. 

But all you really have to do to see that Trump is likely lying (perhaps to distract us from the fact that his health seems to be in decline) is compare pictures of the two of them. Headlines over the years have praised Obama's physique — The Times even ran an article in 2009 telling readers "how to get Obama's abs," praising him as "impressively toned for a world leader" and revealing he exercised for nearly an hour almost every day.

Trump, on the other hand, doesn't exercise beyond walking. "I get exercise. I mean, I walk, I this, I that," he said in a 2017 Reuters interview. "I run over to a building next door. I get more exercise than people think." The president also has a very specific reason for avoiding the gym. "A lot of people go to the gym and they'll work out for two hours and all. I've seen people ... then they get their new knees when they're 55 years old, and they get their new hips, and they do all those things. I don't have those problems," he said. The report said Jackson suggested he change his diet, which he was open to, but in the following years, his love for fast food became the stuff of legend. He even has a bizarre feature in the Oval Office that was also present during his first presidential term — a valet button that he uses to order his favorite beverage: Diet Coke.