New York Magazine's Ben Terris on Trump's Health [Extended Interview]
The Takeout with Major Garrett
CBS News
4.6 • 586 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Major speaks with Ben Terris, DC Correspondent for New York Magazine, about his recent reporting on President Trump's recent health bouts. Major and Ben discuss the bruising on the President's hands, his choice to take elevated levels of aspirin to achieve "thin blood", and his dozing during press conferences. Ben also details the unconventional ways that members of his administration comment on the President's health throughout his article.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ben, great to see you. You sought to ascertain the truth about President Trump's health. |
| 0:04.9 | That's not really easy to do, is it? |
| 0:06.8 | No, it's very difficult to ascertain the truth about President Trump at all. |
| 0:11.2 | But I think in reporting about his health, I was able to ascertain some truth about the way that he does his job, the way that he runs this country, the way that the government is run. |
| 0:19.8 | You thought you would be |
| 0:20.9 | blocked or at least get some pushback. They brought you right in. Yeah, it was surprising to me |
| 0:26.9 | how much access I got. I got to go to the Oval Office and talk to the president and his team of |
| 0:31.6 | doctors. I talked to a lot of his inner circle, his top staff, a cabinet secretary. I was surprised, but, you know, ultimately |
| 0:39.8 | President Trump wants to talk about this issue. He wants people to think that he's the |
| 0:45.6 | healthiest president in the world and feels like he might be his best advocate for that. |
| 0:49.7 | He also knows that his staff and his inner circle are going to talk very highly about him. |
| 1:12.6 | He almost, I feel like, likes to have people go out and just praise him to the press. And so I got to benefit from that. And when you went into the Oval and the doctors were there, you saw something on the paperwork in front of them. What did you see? Yeah. First of all, I surprised they were there at all. I did not expect the doctors to be there. They were standing next to a Christmas tree. It was, you know, late December. |
| 1:13.6 | It was just two men. |
| 1:14.6 | I didn't know who they were, and they were each holding a piece of paper that on the top of the paper said, talking points. And so they had things I wanted to get through. Mm-hmm. Did they recite those talking points to you in any sort of formal way? |
| 1:26.6 | I mean, there were moments where they were looking at those pieces of paper. |
| 1:29.6 | They were asked questions by me and also recite those talking points to you in any sort of formal way? I mean, there were moments where they were looking at those pieces of paper. |
| 1:29.3 | They were asked questions by me and also by Caroline Levitt, the press secretary who was there. |
| 1:34.3 | And it felt like, I don't know, it was a little practiced. |
| 1:37.3 | A little choreographed, little rehearsed, possibly. |
| 1:40.3 | The headline, superhuman president that comes from someone close to the president. |
| 1:45.9 | It probably carries within New York magazine a hint of irony, but it revealed something to |
| 1:51.3 | you about not just what is or isn't true about President Trump's health, but the way the |
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