US Politics
Trump’s aspirin dosing ‘makes no sense’ says Dick Cheney’s heart specialist
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A widely-respect heart specialist, who treated the late vice president Dick Cheney, has said President Donald Trump’s decision to take more than the recommended amount of aspirin “makes no sense.”
Dr. Jonathan Reiner spoke on CNN after the president gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal, where he said that he takes 325 milligrams of aspirin a day – much higher than the more common, daily low dose of 81 milligrams – and had done so for years.
“I’m a little superstitious,” Trump told The Journal. “They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
Reiner –a professor of medicine at George Washington University and a fellow at the American College of Cardiology – explained on CNN that anticoagulants do not actually thin blood. “So that makes no sense, that actually makes nonsense,” he said.
He added: “It’s not like changing something from gumbo to chicken soup, it doesn’t make it doesn’t make it thinner. It makes you less likely to clot.”
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Cheney, who died in November aged 84, suffered five heart attacks throughout his life. In 2012, Cheney, by then four years out of office, had a heart transplant.
He and Reiner later wrote a book together entitled Heart: An American Medical Odyssey. Reiner treated Cheney for many years and also spoke at his funeral last year.
Reiner said doctors used to prescribe aspirin therapy to prevent heart attacks. “But we’ve learned in in recent years that particularly people over the age of 70, not only is there no benefit in terms of just primary prevention,” he said. “Trying to prevent a cardiac event by giving them aspirin, that there can be hazard, and the hazard can be bleeding, significant bleeding.”
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Photos have shown Trump’s hands with large bruises and his attempts to cover them with makeup. The White House has said that the president has chronic venous insufficiency, wherein leg veins do not allow blood to flow back to the heart.
“So why is the President taking an unorthodox dose of aspirin?” Reiner asked. “And the media has published, you know, many photos of his right hand, and now maybe his left hand with this chronic bruise.”
Trump said his large aspirin dosage causes him to bruise easily and doctors encouraged him to take a lower dose, which Reiner also said.
“The White House has said that this is related to chronic aspirin therapy,” Reiner said. “So if you’re bruising a lot, and your doctor says you’re on too much aspirin, why wouldn’t you go down to the lower dose? It makes no sense to me.”
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In his later years, Cheney became an outspoken critic of Trump. His daughter Liz Cheney, a congresswoman who took her father’s old seat in Wyoming, voted to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6 riot, and later co-led the select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Liz Cheney and her father endorsed former vice president Kamala Harris when she ran against Trump in 2024.
Donald Trump insisted in an early morning Truth Social post that he is in “PERFECT HEALTH’ and that he “ACED” his cognitive test after a report about his various vein and skin conditions, poor diet and hearing issues.
