It’s not often that conservative Americans and the left-wing “fact-checker” Snopes will agree, but this is one of them.
A rumor that started with a TikTok video and gained traction from the podcast of a Democratic political operative is claiming a doctor has said President Donald Trump has “six to eight months to live.”
But the chief purveyor of the rumor isn’t presenting a medical doctor at all.
In a YouTube podcast published Monday, which had more than 1.4 million views by Thursday, liberal politico Keith Edwards publicized the claims of a man he identified more than once as a “doctor” who claimed to have observed serious medical conditions in the 47th president.
The problem, as Snopes pointed out in a piece published Wednesday, is that the so-called TikTok “doctor” is actually a physical therapist, who appears to have as much first-hand knowledge of Trump’s medical condition as the average Trump Derangement Syndrome victim.
In fact, his language is quite as Trump-deranged as any MSNBC host. Check out the video here. And note the countless editing cuts. This was definitely not a one-take shot:
@epistemiccrisis #maga #trump #politics #debate #chf ♬ original sound – Epistemic
Naturally, it was popular in leftist circles. Edwards, a Joe Biden sycophant whose anti-Trump social media savvy was profiled by CBS’s “60 Minutes,” couldn’t help but be drawn to it.
And naturally, commenters on platforms where it appeared, like Reddit, made disgusting remarks about Trump’s death being a “national holiday” or calling it “an xmas present for the nation.”
Then Snopes stepped in. And considering the long-running blatant leftward bias of the “fact-checking” site, it was unfortunate for the malicious dreamers that it did.
“The TikTok user made it clear that he is not a doctor,” Snopes’ Taija PerryCook wrote. “He is a physical therapist. At no point in the video above did he claim to be a doctor but stated that he was a ‘home health physical therapist.’”
PerryCook also cited a May video in which the TikTok talking head specifically acknowledged not being an M.D.
“I have a doctorate in the medical field. I’m a physical therapist. I completed my training, even paid off my student loans, if you can believe that one,” the man said.
“I don’t have people refer to me as doctor, though, because it could confuse patients into thinking I’m an M.D. Because I respect the position of physicians enough to not lie about that.”
(Amusingly enough, at the time he was trying to claim Trump surgeon general nominee Casey Means is not an actual physician, which not even the anti-Trump New York Times bothers to argue.)
The so-called “doctor” wasn’t Edwards’ only selling point in the video.
He also rehashed tired claims about bruising on the president’s hands as well as swelling around his ankles that have already been litigated in the court of public opinion. He even brought up Trump’s tongue-in-cheek (and arguably misguided) musings about using a potential peace deal in Ukraine as leverage to make it to heaven.
But the “doctor” was the news hook, the big banana, and the source of Edwards’ headline: “Doctor: Trump has 6 to 8 Months TO LIVE?!”
“There’s all this smoke, right?” Edwards said near the end of the video. “I mean, we’ve heard from one doctor who basically said he has six to eight months to live.”
“And the fact that Donald Trump is talking about trying to get into heaven leads me to believe that, for some reason, death is on the president’s mind.”
There are actually quite a number of reasons death could be on the president’s mind.
For starters, he turned 79 in June, and advancing years bring thoughts of mortality to anyone, regardless of health.
And then there’s the small matter that it was just more than a year ago that a would-be assassin’s bullet came within inches of dispatching Donald Trump to his eternal reward, whatever it might be.
(Many Americans might have let that event slip their minds. It’s a good bet Trump and his family have not.)
Finally, death comes for every man and woman at some point, and as the murderous events Wednesday in Minneapolis show, it can come at any time, even to children.
So, does Donald Trump have six to eight months to go on this Earth? From what’s been presented, there’s no way of knowing — any more than there is a way of knowing whether the writer or the reader of this piece has six to eight months remaining. All of us, after all, have an appointment in Samarra eventually.
But did a “doctor” say Trump has six to eight months to live?
By the evidence here, the answer is a resounding “no.” Even Snopes says so.
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