Three in four Americans want health test requirements for presidents that would be released to the public, a new survey released on Friday found.
Seventy-four percent of respondents agreed there should be legal requirements for the sitting president to share health records, in an Axios/Ipsos poll, and 72 percent of respondents thought most elected officials aren’t honest about their own health.
Additionally, 81 percent of respondents said there should be age limits in place for federal officials, including presidents, Supreme Court justices and members of Congress.
Only 40 percent of respondents said former presidents should legally have to share health records.
The issue of health and cognitive abilities of sitting presidents has been in the spotlight since former President Biden’s disastrous debate in June and eventual decision not to run for reelection. He was 82 when he left office and recently announced he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans accused former Biden Cabinet officials, Democratic members of Congress and the media of participating in a massive “cover-up” to hide what they claim was the former president’s obvious and alarming cognitive decline during his final two years in office.
President Trump, who just turned 79 last week, is the oldest president to be inaugurated.
He underwent an annual physical exam in April and his physician wrote in a memo that he was in “excellent health.” The memo confirmed that Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a test commonly used to detect memory issues or cognitive impairment, and scored a 30 out of 30.
Since he first left office in 2020, Trump had released limited information about his physical health. His campaign released a letter in November 2023 from his personal physician, with little specifics.
Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador who challenged him in the 2024 GOP primary, called for cognitive tests for politicians over 75.
“To most Americans, this is common sense. But many political and media elites scoff at these ideas,” she wrote in May 2023.
The survey was conducted June 13 to 16 and included 1,104 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.
