5 October 2025 WHITE HOUSE SECRETS: MEDICAL LIES AND COVER-UPS by Gail Jarrow, Astra/Calkins Creek, September 2025, 288p., ISBN: 978-1-6626-8103-5

“Google is facing serious accusations about its alleged AI response to information on President Donald Trump's mental health. Google appears to have blocked certain artificial intelligence search results for queries about President Donald Trump’s mental acuity. But Google does provide an AI summary about former President Joe Biden, who was criticized for his mental acuity during the 2024 presidential run.”

– Economic Times (1 October 2025)

“You’ve said that what is most alarming is how far Trump has declined in the last four years. In a petition signed by 3,000 medical professionals warning that Trump’s probable diagnosis is dementia, you said that sometimes forgetting a word is normal aging, whereas inventing words or using non-words is not. Could you elaborate?”

“He is losing his capacity for coherent speech. We’ve collected dozens and dozens of Trump’s phonemic paraphrasias, in which you use sounds in place of an actual word  (a hallmark of brain damage and dementia).  What happens is that someone is trying to say a word and then they get the first part out but they have to end it or create one because they can’t remember the rest. Trump will say something like ‘mishiz’ for missiles, or “Chrishus” for Christmas, because he can’t complete the word. Then we also see a lot of semantic paraphrasias, in which he uses a word incorrectly, as in “the oranges of the situation” because it rhymes with “the origins of the situation.” This is not within normal limits; his basic ability to use language is breaking down.

So there is that verbal deterioration. And then there is the physical deterioration. He used to be quite graceful, and now he uses a wide-based gait typical of frontotemporal dementia, sometimes he swings his right leg in a semi-circle. He also has trouble getting up the ramp; he has trouble doing physical things.

The other way we see deterioration is in his behavior. Actually, this is where people say, ‘Well, how can you tell? He’s a bad person; he breaks every rule of law and decency, what is new?’ But he is much more impulsive and erratic now. He blurts things out; he makes impulsive decisions that he has to then reverse, like his many reversals on tariffs.”

– Psychologist Dr. John Gartner “The Press Has Sanewashed Trump’s Dementia and Mental Illness” (1 April 2025)

“THE TRUTH COMES OUT

On the same day that the New York Times announced [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s death, it ran an article, ‘Roosevelt Health Long Under Doubt.’ With the president dead, journalists no longer felt that they had to stay quiet about his health. The Times article alleged that official statements for two years ‘appeared to be in conflict with visible evidence of his physical condition.’ The White House had deliberately lied to the public.

A year later, Dr. McIntire wrote a book defending himself. He asserted that he had never been deceptive in his press statements. The extensive medical exams during the last two years of the president’s life, he said, proved that Roosevelt was in ‘excellent condition for a man of his age.’ According to McIntire, the only thing wrong with Roosevelt was moderate arteriosclerosis, which wasn’t unusual for a sixty-three-year-old  in a stressful job. The doctor claimed that neither Roosevelt’s blood pressure nor his arteriosclerosis was serious enough to predict his fatal stroke.

McIntire wasn’t being honest. The truth didn’t emerge until 1970 when Dr. Bruenn published his medical notes, with the blessing of Roosevelt’s children. He recounted his examinations and tests of the president starting in March 1944 until Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. For the first time, the public learned about Roosevelt’s enlarged heart and excessively high blood pressure. Despite what McIntire repeatedly told reporters, the president had not been ‘in splendid shape.’”

Author Gail Jarrow, who has garnered numerous awards for her engaging nonfiction books for young people, has written an oh-so-timely exposé for tweens and teens about nine former presidents whose serious, often life-threatening health problems were covered up by their respective administrations, along with their physicians and families, too often with the full cooperation of the press. 

James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Joe Biden are the presidential subjects of this fascinating, well-researched, and well-documented examination of the whoppers that past administrations have told the public concerning the fitness of presidents to serve as chief executive. 

This jaw-dropping compilation of White House BS that has been shoveled out over the past nearly 200 years–in order to cover up the truth about the faltering minds and bodies of presidents in serious decline–will shock you. It certainly provides an important perspective regarding how one might evaluate Google’s cover-up of Trump’s mental health, as well as the chasm that certainly seems to exist between what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears, and what the president and his administration claim is Trump’s excellent physical health and mental acuity. 

The author concludes with a list of terrific questions for young readers to reflect upon. They include:

Is it the president’s right to privacy more important than the public’s right to know medical details?

Should there be an upper age limit for the presidency just as there is a minimum age of thirty-five?

Should a president be required to have an annual physical with the results disclosed?

If a president takes medications, should they be made public?

Given that presidents have the ability to precipitate a nuclear war–and end the civilized world as we know it–it might be in our best interests to insist upon more information–free of spin–about whether the president is fit as a fiddle or heading for a crash landing. 

My vote is for adding this killer read to middle- and high school collections.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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