U.S. Congress attending physician Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the Democratic presidential candidate’s doctor of 26 years, wrote in a letter released Thursday, “You are in overall very good health and active in your professional work, and recreational lifestyle without limitation.”
The letter is as antiseptic as Donald Trump’s doctor was bombastic. In medical jargon, Monahan notes that his 74-year-old has been treated for gout, high cholesterol, strained back, acid reflux, superficial skin tumors, hernias, and other conditions. The Vermont senator’s blood pressure is 136/81, which, as Time notes, is “a systolic blood pressure that health officials consider borderline hypertension” (otherwise known as high blood pressure).
“Borderline hypertension” more accurately describes Sanders’s demeanor than any other word I’ve encountered.