President Donald Trump was at the center of two high-profile meetings on Tuesday afternoon. He first attended a meeting with GOP Senators, followed by an Oval Office meeting with NATO General Secretary, Mark Rutte, in what turned out to be a very busy afternoon for the 79-year-old.
Amid all the business, concerns around Trump’s health persisted, as, earlier on Tuesday, a report claimed Trump may be taking an experimental weight loss drug called retatrutide, made by the drug-maker Eli Lilly, through the Federal Drug Administration’s “compassionate use” program. The program allows terminally ill patients to experimentally use drugs not yet approved for public use by the FDA.
The claim first surfaced on STAT News. The outlet claimed that only one 79-year-old has been approved to use retatrutide. It was speculated that the patient could be Trump, but it offered no confirmation. But the White House quickly shot back at the report. Kush Desai, White House deputy press secretary, clarified on the same in an X post on Tuesday.
But the rumors of Trump being sick resurfaced on Wednesday after the POTUS was purportedly caught having difficulty breathing while talking to reporters after the meeting with GOP Senators earlier Wednesday. The video was shared by the X account of Medias Touch.
Here’s the video:
White House Targets Journalist Behind Retatrutide Report
The news about Trump possibly being the patient who is receiving Eli Lilly’s retatrutide drug was reported by journalist Lizzy Lawrence of STAT News. As the White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai debunked the rumor on X, he took aim at Lawrence, calling her an “unserious gossip columnist.”
“Because this has to be spelled out for Lizzy Lawrence, who has proven herself to be an unserious gossip columnist, this application was not for the President,” Desai wrote.
However, Desai did not stop there. He commented under Lizzy Lawrence’s post on X that contained the report.
Referring to Lawrence’s mention that the White House did not respond to requests for comments on the report, he wrote: “We shouldn’t have to bat down baseless speculation for you to not print it. Any reporter with standards would understand this. “Are you going to now go ask this idiotic question to the ~4 million Americans in this age cohort and then speculate about them being the application?”
Ted Lieu Mounts Fresh Attack Over Retatrutide Report
Senator Ted Lieu of California, one of Trump’s fiercest critics, attacked the 79-year-old and the White House over the report that Trump may be using Retatrutide. At a press conference on Wednesday, Lieu brought up the issue and asked the White to “come clean.”
“What we know is there’s a report saying that one person in America got this special new drug,” Lieu said. “It was a 79-year-old person who was very high profile. And this drug can only be given to someone under the compassionate use provision. Meaning you do that if someone basically has a terminal illness.
“So we need to know, did Donald Trump get this special drug from Eli Lilly? And did he get it under that provision? And if he did, why is that the case?”
