But here's what I suspect:

1. I suspect President Donald Trump has a progressive, incurable, life-shortening disease, known as systemic amyloidosis. [ ABOUT ] The central fault in amyloidosis is abnormally behaving proteins in the blood that infiltrate multiple body organs and impair their function. You can read more about the disease in the "About amyloidosis" page, but it's better to finish reading the present page first.     Hide

2. I suspect the president and his physicians know this.

3. I suspect that signs of this illness were present even as he ran for president in 2024.

4. I suspect the president has heart failure due to systemic amyloidosis affecting the heart.

5. I suspect the president and his physicians know this, too.

6. I suspect the president and his physicians carefully design their medical reports.

These suspicions arise from data in official White House medical reports (except #3). If his physicians know, they will treat to slow the disease.

My goals are to show you why my suspicions remain strong, despite trying 15 ways to knock them down, and that I've done my homework.

To reinforce, I am not diagnosing the president with anything. I suspect he has amyloidosis. They are different propositions. Suspicion is a stepping-stone to diagnosis.

Then why do this?

• At some point, systemic amyloidosis becomes severe enough to affect governance.

• It would be in the nation's interest to know whether the president has amyloidosis or not.

• If the president does have amyloidosis, it would be in the nation's interest to know specific medical data related to his capacity to govern.

In other words, knowing if a president has a disease like amyloidosis enables better judgment of capacity to govern, which, in turn, prevents the nation from suffering. As a simple example, a man with amyloidosis who falls asleep at his desk is going to be regarded differently than a man without amyloidosis who falls asleep at his desk. And that's completely fair.

Thus, the president and his physician should level with us... and with the vice president. The amyloidosis suspicion is strong enough that allaying it will require negative results from one of the two definitive tests for the disease. Yes, everyone deserves medical privacy, but no one in America has absolute privacy: pilots must be medically certified, and child abuse must be reported, and every time you see a doctor your insurance company finds out your diagnosis and medications... and never forgets it. Every president volunteers to be a public figure. You don't.

Again, amyloidosis is a suspicion, not a diagnosis. It could be all wrong. I could be all wrong. Tell me why.

In the best case, the president – who is a human being with a family – tells us that a definitive test shows he is free from amyloidosis, in the process creating an important and admirable precedent for openness about presidential health, while also sparing himself a dread ending that should be wished upon no one.