President Donald Trump is raising eyebrows after reiterating his love for — and apparent need of — aspirin.
“I love Bayer Aspirin. I take an aspirin a day,” Trump, 80, said while speaking to a crowd of supporters at a midterm campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday, October 3. “I don’t know if it works, but psychologically I need it. It thins the hell out of your blood I guess. I don’t know if it works or not but I’ve been doing it for a long time — and here I am, making speeches.”
The commander-in-chief continued, “Bayer. And I like Bayer aspirin … I take the big one. You know they want me to go down to the 80… I take the 386… I don’t know what the hell it is. It’s a monster. They said, ‘Sir, you don’t need that.’ I said, ‘Do me a favor — I’ve been doing okay for 35 years. Leave me alone.’”
The president went on to claim that when he has switched aspirin doses, things go awry.
“I switch to the little tiny one — the little tiny — it doesn’t look right,” he continued. “I’ll switch to that little tiny one and something bad will happen.”
Trump — the oldest person to be inaugurated at 78 — has made headlines in recent years for his perceived health.
“They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart,” the president told the Wall Street Journal in a January interview, claiming his daily aspirin dose is to blame for the visible bruising on his hands.
“I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart,” Trump added at the time. (Doctors have noted that the president takes a full 325-milligram dose of aspirin every day — a dose that is significantly higher than the recommended 81-milligram of aspirin for some patients experiencing heart issues.)
When asked about the visible discoloration on his hands, the president admitted to covering up the marks with makeup in an effort to hide the bruising.
“I have makeup that’s, you know, easy to put on, takes 10 seconds,” Trump told the outlet.
That same month, former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the bruising on the president’s hand was the result of an accidental bump against a table during an official signing.
“At the Board of Peace event today in Davos, President Trump hit his hand on the corner of the signing table, causing it to bruise,” she claimed in a statement at the time.
Trump later reiterated the claim on Air Force One.
“I clipped it on the table,” he told CNN’s Samatha Waldenberg at the time. “I put a little — what do they call it? — cream on it. But I clipped it.”
