thanks so much. been a busy week and we have more to come. i'm dana perino. here now is shepard smith. >> shepard: it's noon on the west coast. 3:00 at the white house. we're waiting for the briefing and an update on president trump's first doctors checkup as commander-in-chief. we'll bring it to you live. the president's former chief strategist getting a subpoena from the special counsel to face a grand jury. steve bannon talking to the house intelligence committee today. he called the trump tower meeting with the russian lawyer treasonous. and the president said sloppy steve had lost his mind. lawmakers also set to question two more members of the trump inner circle this week. and a daring escape from a torture chamber. a couple accused of starving

their 13-year-old kids and keeping some padlocked in chains. how one girl managed to break free and save them all. let's get to it. good tuesday afternoon from the fox news deck. we're expecting to hear from president trump's doctor with the results of the president's medical checkup. press secretary sarah sanders also scheduled to take questions from reporters. one possible topic, the clock ticking toward a government shut down. the deadline is friday for republicans and democrats to pass a spending bill. president trump is accusing democrats of holding the government hostage for a deal on immigration. today the president tweeted, the democrats want to shut down the government over amnesty for all and border security. the biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding military at a

time that we need it more than ever. we need a merit-based system of immigration and we need it now. no more dangerous lotteries. the democrats are not asking for amnesty for all. and the dangerous lottery, as he put it, is actually the diversity immigrant visa program. it passed under president bush in the year 1990 with support from democrats and republicans. people who enter this nation under the program are required to pass vetting and background checks. there was a bipartisan deal that reportedly had support to pass in congress. today the republican south carolina senator lindsey graham blasted the president for changing his tune on immigration. senator graham pointed out the president originally called for a bill of love. then rejected that bipartisan senate plan. senator graham says somebody gave the president bad advice. >> something happened. i don't think he was well-served

by his staff, but he's responsible for the way he conducts himself. here's what is going to matter. how does it end? how does it end? does it end with the government shutting down? we should all be kicked out if that happens. >> republicans need democrats to pass a spending bill. democrats want the deal to include protection for the dreamers. the hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose parents brought them to the united states without documents. republican leaders says they want to keep the issues separate. the president says he wants funding for a border wall. according to chad pergram, it might take a government shut down to force a solution to all issues. there's political peril for both sides. mike emanuel is live on capitol hill with more. mike? >> shep, good afternoon. a senior senate democrat notes that republicans are in power these days, so he's saying it's on the gop. >> the republicans control the house, they control the senate.

they control the presidency. the government stays open if they want to stay open. it shuts down if they want it to shut down. it will be humiliating for the united states, humiliating for the president. i'd be amazed he'd want to humiliate himself that way. >> the senate republican whip says there's no reason to shut down the government late night friday night. >> it would be a terrible mistake to shut down the government. particularly while we're negotiating in good faith. because we're not meeting their deadline, that's not very productive. >> most folks expect a vote on a government funding extension until mid february at this week but they need enough votes to pass the house and the senate, shep. >> shepard: i know where we were thursday on immigration. do we know where we are now on immigration? >> they're still talking. most folks don't believe they'll get it done this week. steny hoyer is running out of

patien patience. he says a daca deal must be attached to a government extension. bipartisan and senators that rejected a plan by the president last week are still pushing. >> i can tell you we're working nonstop over the weekend and yesterday to find support, republican support for our bipartisan agreement. we're going to be ready to go this week. we'll be introducing the bill, bringing it to the floor so the members can see it in detail. >> a key senate republican is praising president trump for holding out for the other components he wants. >> i think the president should leadership in saying i'm not going to have an end-around as a solution. i want the people in the room to take a look at those four pillars and work out a solution. so i think he's doing a great job. >> republicans are betting senate democrats up for re-election won't want to be part of a government shut down. tensions are up, shep. >> shepard: mike emanuel on capitol hill. thank you. let's tuesday to louise now, white house reporter for the

"wall street journal." she has an article out on the possible shut down. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> shepard: there's some peril open both sides here. can you explain to our viewer what's that is? >> well, you certainly heard from the president the last couple days he is pinning this on the democrats saying their desire for an immigration deal that doesn't meet his needs or meet the needs of the country will be what drives a shut down. as you heard from many other people, with republicans in charge of the executive and the legislative branches, it's not clear that's how voters will see it. voting experts say people don't know or can't tell you in advance how they would feel and where they would put blame if a shut down were to occur. >> shepard: and the trump factor could change things. he has a way of capturing narrative, especially when democrats are looking at this 2018 wave as they see it to get

in the way of that. i guess some of them suggesting might be a difficult thing. their base wants a deal on dreamers as well. >> well, it's been a fairly tumultuous few days. what we heard thursday in our interview with president trump is he believed his base would support him in securing a deal for the dreamers. in exchange, he wanted tougher boarder security, curbs on the visa lottery and family-based immigration. he felt like they were close to that deal. and then there was the meeting that happened. one of the biggest upshots that democrats are less inclined to cut a deal as things stands. that is what led into the government funding debate as well. >> shepard: we know how the meeting got started. lindsey graham and dick durbin were going to the white house because dick durbin had the best conversation with the president. he said come over, let's do the deal. the president said i'll get the deal done. let's get it done.

away they went. there was miller, who had brought in some hard-liners from the right on immigration. all of it went poof. was this a stephen miller thing or something else? >> right. certainly was rapid. that's the easyst take away from it. minutes before this meeting, the president was close on a deal. within hours, they were not. the next day they were closer to not being able to keep the government open as a result. >> shepard: all the words that went on there aside, as a separate issue, i've been home with the flu for long enough and i've heard that word more times than i heard it from my brother as a child, which is saying something, but during that process, we know that this daca thing went away. now, is the good money today, louise, is the good money on another temporary, as people put it, a kick down the road on the budget or something else? >> that's what we've heard from folks on the hill. they're not keen on doing a

temporary extension. as one conservative member put it, that is one of the only tools they have left to get this done in the remaining days. it's not immediately clear that a daca deal has gone away either as much as the daca deal appears to be looking like it has prospects for the 19th. the president made a surprise appearance at a panel event on opioids and healthcare. he said he saw -- he talked about the economy and other issues. he did see a deal at some point on immigration and on the daca issue. but again, that wasn't saying it's close. it wasn't saying it's this week and it wasn't saying it's a sure thing. >> shepard: thanks, louise, from the "wall street journal." thanks so much. nice to see you. >> thank you. >> shepard: lawmakers are fired up over last week's white house meeting on immigration, the one we did cussed. one senator said he's fed up over a lack of answers. >> you don't remember, you can't remember the words of your commander-in-chief. that's unacceptable. >> shepard: ahead, the response from a cabinet member in that

meeting on exactly what went down behind closed doors. that's as we wait for the white house briefing to begin. the president's doctor is set to answer a question from reporters, we're told, about president trump's checkup last week. that's ahead on the fox news deck on this tuesday afternoon. since my new year's resolution to be safe stuff, people keep asking me if i miss the mayhem? does waiting around trying to protect your house from a lighting strike give me the same rush as being golfball-sized hail? of course not. but if you can stick to your new year's resolution, then i can stick to mine and be the best road flare i can... what? you couldn't even last two weeks? in that case, consider mayhem officially back. so get allstate. and be better protected in 2018 from mayhem. like me. here's the story of green mountain coffee roasters sumatra reserve. let's go to sumatra. the coffee here is amazing. because the volcanic soil is amazing. so we give farmers like win more plants. to grow more delicious coffee. which helps provide for win's family. all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee.

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talk about haiti and african nations last week. that's why kirstjen nielsen told the senate committee today. she was there to talk about threats to the united states but democratic senators grilled her about what president trump said. he was questioned why the united states is accepting immigrants from haiti and africa. >> the conversation was very impassioned. i don't dispute that the president was using tough language. >> what was that strong language? >> let's see. strong language. there was -- apologies. i don't remember specific words. >> at any point in that conversation on thursday, did the president of the united states use that four-letter word? >> sir, respectfully, i have answered this. i've been very patient with this line of questioning. i'm here to tell you about the threats our country faces. i have nothing further to say

about a meeting that happened over a week ago. i would like to move forward. >> shepard: it was an impressive performance regarding that s-hole word. corey booker of new jersey was not satisfied with the secretary's answers. >> i don't have amnesia on conversations i had in the oval office when ignorance and bigotry is aligned with power, it's a dangerous force in our country. your silence and your amnesia is complicity. >> shepard: democrats were far from alone when speaking up about the president's comments. our chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge has more. >> republican senator lindsey graham told the session that the immigration meetings tone last thursday was unexpected given his recent experience last week. >> tuesday we had a president that i was proud to golf with, call my friend who understood immigration had to be bipartisan. had to have border security and

he understood the idea that we had to do it with compassion. now i don't know where that guy went. i want him back. >> as you just saw two hours and 15 minutes into the meeting, secretary nielsen told richard blumenthal that she answered questioned about the president and she was patient but she thought it was time to move on and talk act the core issues for homeland security, which was protecting the country, shep. >> shepard: and lawmakers asked secretary nielsen about the border wall. >> yeah. the wall is one of the president's signature issues and it called for a multibillion dollar investment for 722 miles of border wall. democrats said this is not money well-spent. >> if you say a wall is last century's technology, with that

$18 billion, how many more agents could you hire or tsa screeners to shorten lines at airports -- >> sir, all i can tell you is that walls work. we have examples of that, we have documented data. i don't know about anyone saying it's last generation's technology. >> the committee seniors said the wall could only be affected if there were changes in the wall. >> do you think there's loop holes and weekend's your agency's ability to effectively secure the border? >> yes, sir, i couldn't agree more. >> more than four hours of testimony, there was no answer on whether mexico would help foot the bill for the wall or paid for with border fees, shep. >> shepard: catherine herridge live on capitol hill. steve bannon now ordered to testify before a grand jury. it's the first time somebody so close to president trump has gotten a subpoena from the

special counsel. that as we learned what happened at steve bannon's closed-door meeting today in a separate investigation into russian meddling. that is next as we wait for the white house briefing to begin and the doctor, the presidential doctor, set to take questions in just minutes. stay here. megan's a lawyer. when it comes to presenting evidence, nobody does it better. she's also this close to finding bigfoot. but when it comes to mortgages, she's less confident. fortunately for megan, there's rocket mortgage by quicken loans. it's simple, so she can understand the details and get approved in as few as eight minutes. apply simply. understand fully. mortgage confidently. rocket mortgage by quicken loans.

>> shepard: the special counsel, robert mueller, is slapping president trump's former strategist steve bannon with a subpoena to testify before a grand jury. "the new york times" reports this is the first time the mueller team is using a grand jury subpoena to get information from a member of the president's inner circle. this comes as bannon is meeting behind closed doors with the house intelligence committee. we're getting word that he's refusing to answer certain

questions. details in just a moment. bannon slammed president trump's oldest son, don jr. and jared kushner in michael wolff's book "fire and fury." bannon called the meeting to get dirt on hillary treasonous. bannon backtracked saying treasonous applied to paul manafort. the author of the book says that is poppy cock. the house intelligence committee is set to interview corey lewandowski and long-time aide hope hicks. congressional committees and robert mueller are looking into russian meddling in the 2016 election. the white house and vladimir putin says there's no collusion. let's turn to chad pergram with

more. so this is not a difference without a distinction. a subpoena is quite a different thing than anything else we've seen so far, is it not? >> right. this is what everybody so unique about what happened in the house intelligence committee today. they called in steve bannon. this is mostly a democratic witness. democrats wanted to hear from him more than the republicans on the committee did as republicans on the committee told me they wanted to check a box. he told them that he was told by the white house counsel's office that he would not talk about his time while he worked at the white house or also on the transition. this infuriated members of the committee from both sides of the aisle. when you come before a committee, they went to hear from you. he was not citing any legal precedent or executive privilege that was cited by the president of the united states. he was just advised by the white house's counsel's office not to answer those questions. this is the remarkable part, shep. you don't have this happen any committee very often. on the spot, democrats and republicans issued a subpoena for both documents and his

testimony. this is all going down right now in the basement of the capitol behind closed doors. i'm told at this hour that he's still refusing to answer the questions, he's not invoking the fifth amendment. he's saying i'm not going to answer those questions. if they wanted to go to the mat and i'm told there's chatter about this, they could come before the entire house of representatives and vote to hold steve bannon in contempt of congress. keep in mind that steve bannon doesn't have a lot of friends on capitol hill these days. he doesn't have them on the democratic side of the aisle. after what happened with the special election in alabama where he backed roy moore, he lost a lot of republican support. mitch mcconnell was upset with him talking about kind of tongue and cheek that this was the brilliance of this political mind, steve bannon, flipping a republican senate seat to democrat. so this has been going on since 8:00 a.m. and we don't know how it's going to turn out. >> shepard: you said contempt of

congress is a possibility. if they did that, what would that do? >> this would have to be officially reported out from the committee. would go before the full house. as we saw in other instances where the house of representatives, the republican house held eric holder, the obama attorney general in contempt of congress, basically said we need you to do these things. he still didn't come and testify. they did provide some documents here and there. there were some cases with the democratic house, with the bush white house, the white house chief of staff at the time, hair yesterday meyers. they worked out an agreement. it was interesting in the bush white house versus the democratic house instance where you had a federal judge basically saying, i'm not getting involved in this. you have one co-equal branch of government, the executive branch fighting with the legislative branch so why should i fight? that would produce another impass. >> shepard: one last thing. on grand jury subpoena, he will be under oath? >> he would be under oath under those circumstances and any committee hearing as well.

>> shepard: if he doesn't want to answer the questions, if he wants to invoke the fifth, he has to do it on everything. >> he has -- that's the way they have typically treated this on capitol hill. if you go back to iran contra, that was the issue there. that's what happened with lois learner before the house oversight committee, the former irs official where at one point she said some things but then invoked the fifth on others. you had that with oliver north where he issued a statement and then wanted immunity from congress. >> shepard: what about hope hicks? the trump aide that came from the president's wife's team. >> she's supposed to come up friday. we're supposed to hear from corey lewandowski wednesday or thursday here. bruce ohr, the former fbi official or doj official. the question if this is the plan with officials that used to work at the white house lies steve

bannon, how will corey lewandowski testify before the intelligence committee and how will hope hicks currently on staff, what questions will she be willing to answer before the house intelligence committee friday. >> shepard: should be interesting. good to see you. thank you. >> likewise. >> shepard: coming up, we head to the white house where the briefing is scheduled to start in moments and the doctor that did president trump's physical or i should say is the president's physician is expected to take the podium, this is not the same physician as the one during the campaign. remember, that physician? that physician. now that would be one thing, this would be a different thing. and we'll have this different thing that is set to begin at the bottom of the hour. we have time for a quick commercial break. first, a look at the headlines, including this. an army veteran said somebody left a scalpel in his body after surgery. awkward! how he's suing. details a couple minutes away.

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>> i'm lea gabrielle with the fox report. more of today's headlines, a gunman shot and wounded four officers that were responding to a domestic violence call in south carolina. not far from charlotte. that is the word from a sheriff's office spokesman who says one of the officers is hanging on to life. the spokesman said officer as rested the suspect who was also hurt in the shootout. an army veteran suing the v.a. claiming surgeons left a scalpel in his body. the man's lawyer said he felt dizzy and had severe pain in his gut for four years. and chris christie the governor of new jersey no longer governor today. christie had to retire because of term limits.

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an "unjection™". >> shepard: dilly dilly. the press conference is going to begin shortly. the white house press briefing. we expect a presidential physician to talk about the president up checkup. it was the president's first official exam since he took office. while we wait, john roberts is standing around there. might as well talk to him. the president suggested this is a good news seminar. >> yeah, the early indications that we have it will be a good news seminar for the president. the only statement we got about his hold is the president's physician that had seen him since 1980 gave him a cursory statement. he said if elected, mr. trump will be the healthiest individual elected to the presidency. what do we know about the president and his health?

his 71 years old. he has a tremendous amount of energy. in the campaign, he was being run ragged and still managed to outpace people half his age. let's listen to the doctor. >> we'll let john roberts wrap up. can we go ahead? >> you're reasonably on time for a change. >> trying new things. the good doctor has me on time today. i'm going to open with a statement from brigadier general dr. richard tub, one of the longest serving white house physicians in history serving from 1995 to 2009. as a physician to the president, he earned the trust and confidence of presidents from different parties. he trained under a physician of the train and trained ronnie jackson, the current physician to the president who has also earned the trust and confidence of presidents from both parties.

dr. tub trained dr. ronnie jackson. president and mrs. bush knew and trusted him. it's safe to assume that president and mrs. obama trusted him as well. after all, they personally selected him to be their physician. today dr. jackson will offer his professional assessment of the president's medical fitness for duty. friday dr. jackson conducted and supervised donald trump's first periodic exam as president of the united states. having had the opportunity to review the tests, consulted specialists and analyze the results and discuss him with his patient, he will provide us with his considered assessment of the president's medical fitness for duty now and for the remainder of his term of office. with regard to friday's examination, i'm confident that he practiced good medicine. it would be an error to review that exam and dr. jackson's assessment as an isolated event when in practice it's an ongoing process. far more important to a

meaningful assessment for the president's fitness for duty, observations, interactions, examinations during the remaining 364 days of the year. dr. jackson and his team have been doing precisely that from the moment donald j. trump was elected. beginning november 9, 2016, the members of the white house medical unit shadowed the president-elect 24/7. on january 20th, dr. jackson became that velcro. dr. jackson's office is one of the few residents proper in the white house and located across the president's elevator. on any given day, the physician's office is the first and last to see the president dr. jackson is built and leads an organization that is better than any other in history. i know that. i was well-served by this president's doctor. more importantly, president and

mrs. bush were well-served by dr. jackson as were. and mrs. obama. in keeping with his oath, i have every reason to believe that dr. jackson will discharge the duties of his office and president and mrs. trump, the office of the presidency and the country will be well-served because of it. thank you, brigadier general dr. richard tubb for that background and that information. i will turn it over to dr. jackson. as always, if you could, keep your questions on topic and after dr. jackson finishes, i'll come back up to address other questions of the day. thanks, guys. >> good afternoon, everyone. all right. so to start with, what i'm going to do is i'm going to read to you the summary of the president's physical. so i'll read through this. after i'm done reading it, after the brief we'll make this available to everyone as i read it here and i'll take a few questions. so start with. donald j. trump has completed

his first periodic physical examination as president of the united states. i performed an supervised the examination with the appropriate consultations and diagnostic testing. the exam was conducted in 2018 at the walter reed national military medical center. the purpose of the exam was to provide the public with an update of the president's current health status and to ensure the president continues to enjoy all the benefits of good health. this examination focused on evidence-based health screening and disease prevention. with the president's consent, i released the following health information. vitals as follows. age 71 years and seven months at the time of the exam, height 75 inches, weight 239 points. resting heart right, 68. blood pressure 122 over 74. pulse ox, 99% on room air. temperature was 98.4. physical examination, included studies that were done by

system. eyes, the president's uncorrected visual acuity is 20/30 bilaterally with corrected vision of 20/20. his visual fields were normal. his intraocular pressures were normal and no ocular pathology was discovered. head, ears, nose and throat, normal exam of the head, ears, nose, mouth and throat. dental exam, he has healthy teeth and gums. no other dental findings. neck, normal thyroid exam. his carotid armories were normal. a ct of the chest demonstrated no pathology. cardiac exam. heart exam was normal. no murmurs or other heart sounds were noted. his ecg or commonly ekg was normal sinus rhythm with a right of 71. he had a normal axis and no other findings. he has a trans thoracic echo

cardio graham done which was normal. an ejection fraction of 60 to 65%. normal wall thickness. his right ventricle was normal. his atria were grossly normal. he had an echo stress cardio gram done and a normal heart rate and blood pressure and cardiac output response to exercise. he had no evidence:ischemia and his wall motion was normal in all images. gastrointestinal exam. he had a normal exam. no spleenomegaly. he had a normal colonoscopy done in 2013 that demonstrated no findings. because of that, a repeat was not indicated at the time and will be deferred.

genital urinary exam was normal. extremities normal throughout. full range of motion in all joints. he had strong distal pulses and good capillary refills. no swelling or edema. neurological exam. deep tendon reflexes, motor function and sensory system were all normal. a cognitive screening exam using the montreal assessment was normal with a score of 30 over 30. no evidence of melanoma or in other diseases. going to go over some labs here. you can look at the details when you put out the written. but laboratory results summarized. a lipid panel. a total cholesterol of 223. tries -- his total cholesterol

ratio was 3.3. his complete blood count to include his white blood cell count, his hemoglobin and platelets were normal. his extended metabolic panel as follows. his fasting blood glucose was 89. his bun was 19. his creatnine was normal. his alt was 27. his ast was 19, normal. his vitamin d was 20. his psa was 0.12. his thyroid screen with the tsh was 1.76. he had a urinalysis done that was clear and had no evidence of protein, keytones, glucose or

blood. his past surgical history, he had an appendectomy at age 11. he has no past or present use of alcohol, no past or present use of tobacco. his medications as follows. he takes crestor ten days to lower his cholesterol. he takes aspirin for cardiac health. he takes propecia for pattern of male pattern hair loss. he take solantra cream as needed for rosacea and takes a multivitamin for health maintenance. immunizations. the president during his physical exam had a prevnar exam and a number 2 dose of his twin rics to prevent hepatitis a and b. his flu vaccines are up to date and all indicated travel vaccinations are up to date. in summary, the president's overall health is excellent. his cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good.

he continues to enjoy the significant long-term cardiac and overall health benefits that come from a life of the abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. we discussed diet and weight loss. he would benefit from a diet low of carbohydrates and a regular exercise regimen. he has elevated cholesterol and a low dose of crestor. in order to decrease his cardiac risk, we will increase the dose of this particular medication. the president is currently up to date on all recommended preventative medicine and screening tests and exams. all clinical data indicates the president is healthy and will remain so for the duration of his presidency. okay. with that i'll take some questions. before we get started, let me make a comment. i just like to point out for you here in this room, many of you which know me, if something should happen to you over the next few months and you should fall ill, most likely i'll be the one to take care of you.

so when you ask your questions, keep that in mind. [laughter] yes, sir. >> dr. jackson, how much weight have you suggested the president lose? he's not exactly been enthusiastic about exercising. the president believes we all have a finite battery. we waste it on batteries. what did you counsel him about that? >> that's right. so, you know, the president, he and i talked and he would like to lose the next -- a reasonable goal the next year is to lose 1 or 15 pounds. we talked about diet and exercise a lot. he's more enthuse -- enthusiastic about the diet part than the exercise part. we will work together to meet those goals. >> the president's mental fitness. he's pushed back on that.

can you assess his mental fitness for office? >> absolutely. so many of you pay have picked up on the fact that we did do a cognitive assessment. initially i had no intention of entering the cognitive exam. per all the guidelines out there, it's not indicated at this time. a lot of the guidelines would suggest you do cognitive screening questions. if you have a positive or concerning answer, then you engage with a cognitive screening tool. so i had no intention to do that like i said because i didn't feel it was clinically indicated. part of the reason i didn't think it was indicated is i've spent almost every day in the president's presence since january 20, last year when he got into office. i've seen him every day. i've seen him one, two, sometimes three times a day because of the location of my office. we have conversations about many things. most don't revolve around

medical issues. i've got to know him well. i have no concerns about his cognitive ability or his neurological function. so i was not going to do a cognitive exam. i had no intention. the reason we did it is plain and simple, because the president asked me to do it. he said is there something, we can do, a test or screen to assess my cognitive ability. so i looked into it. my initial questions indicated i didn't think we should do it. after looking at the guidelines, there's a few out there that lean in the direction of potentially doing the medicare guidelines and some of the nih, national institute of aging thinks it a good thing to do for most patients. i looked at variety of the cognitive assessments available. most are very simple, very short. i think that's the goal for primary care providers in doing this, to keep it simple and keep

it short. we picked one of the ones that was more involved. it was longer and the more difficult one of all of them. it took significantly longer to complete. the president did extremely well on it. that was not driven at all from any concerns i have. it was driven by the president's wishes and he did well on it. >> the president's personal doctor said during the campaign that he would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. do you agree with that? >> i'm not going to comment on that. my job is to give you my assessment of president trump today. i'm not going to make any comparisons with the presidents over the last 200 years. >> there was an incident recently where the president appeared to slur his words while giving an address. did you look into what the cause of that might have been at all? >> i did. we talked about that. actually one of my ent consultants was involved in that. we evaluated him. we checked everything out. everything was normal. we went so far as to do an ultra

sound of his carotid glands. i think i need a drink of water, to be honest with you. but i had given the president medication, sudafed, the days previous and i had inadvertently dried up his secretions more than i wanted to and that precipitated it. >> some say that could be related to dentures. does he -- >> the president has no dentures of any kind. >> two questions. one about the ejection fracture. my wife suffers from that so i clued in on 60%. is that a concern going for toward for him? in some cases that indicates -- >> no. 60 to 65% is normal. >> the second follow up. cholesterol. over 220, do you hope to get it under 200? >> we're not focusing on the

total cholesterol as much as the ldl. we want to get it below 20. >> and with the low, i understand the blood pressure was within norms. but the high cholesterol, are there any concerns for his heart health? >> no, not at all. the one good thing that -- there's many good things that came from his exam. i think he had great findings across the board. the one that stands out more than anything is his cardiac health. his cardiac health is excellent. so i think, you know, with all the other things in place, he doesn't have a family history of premature cardiac disease. he doesn't smoke. he doesn't have diabetes. a lot of the traditional risk factors he doesn't have. so i think that those things in combination with the excellent cardiac results that we got from the exercise stress test were very re-assuring. >> thank you. could you just elaborate in laymen's terms -- you did a great job at that -- if you ruled out any cognitive tests?

there's been reports that the president has forgotten names. he's repeating himself. are you ruling out things like early on set alzheimers or are you looking at dementia-like symptoms? a second question, a lot of doctors at the back end of a physical like to give their patients tips before they walk out. things that they should change in terms of lifestyle and behavior. what did you tell the president outside of diet that he might want to change? >> yes. i think that cognitive test, it's well-respected. it's a test that is used throughout the united states. lots of institutions use that test. it's the one that they use at walter reed for patients that they feel like they need to do cognitive screens on. it's a universally accepted test. it's longer than some of the other ones. but it screens for all of those things. screens for any type of cognitive issues, alzheimers. the fact that the president got 30 out of 30 on the exam,

there's no indication whatsoever that he has any cognitive issues. you know, on a day-to-day basis like i said before, it's been my experience that the president is very sharp and, you know, he's very articulate when he speaks to me. i have never known him to repeat himself around me. he says what he has to say and speaks his mind. i found no reason whatsoever to think that the president -- i found no reason whatsoever to think that the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought process. >> did you recommend he make any changes like -- >> not really. the main thing that we focused on with regards to lifestyle changes are diet and exercise. if we get diet and exercise right, weight loss will come. those are the things we focused on. there wasn't a lot to go on here as far as giving -- making him healthier in the year coming other than incorporating an exercise routine, working on his diet. those will make him much

healthier than he is right now. although his health is excellent. dr. gupta? you want to answer one or -- >> there were some pretty intensive tests including a ct -- >> a trans thoracic. >> did he need to be sedated? something to be worried about? >> no, not at all. we got the committee today scan -- i didn't have any background information from him from a pulmonary standpoint. i did have old chest x-rays to look at. so i was going to initially just get a chest x-ray, be done with it. but it's so easy to whip in and just takes a few -- a minute or two, about as much time to get a cat scan the way we did as a chest x-ray and gives you more information. so made more sense to get the ct down. with regards to echo cardio gram. i wanted to prescribe an exercise program for the president. it made sense to get a good

cardiac assessment in a controlled environment like the hospital before you prescribe an exercise program to a patient. so that was my thinking there. >> he does have heart disease? >> he does not. >> did he have a ct scan before that shows calcium in his blood vessels? >> he did. he has nonclinical coronary athero sclerosis. he had a coronary score done in 2009 and in 2013 that was 98. we did get a calcium score. it was clinically good information. it wasn't -- it was 133. so had a long conversation were the cardiologist. not only the cardiologist at walter reed but at the cleveland clinic and several other well-known institutions. everyone saw that as re-assuring

that he's gone this period of time and had that little of change in his coronary calcium load. so i think overall, his coronary score is very re-assuring and goes along with the rest of his cardiac workup. >> i want to ask a question to follow up on the philosophy of the fitness of the president. the 25th amendment talks about that a group of senate confirmed laymen will weigh-in on whether the president is able to discharge the duties of the office. you've been giving this some thought over the years. what basis -- this is philosophical -- would you advise that the president is unable to discharge his duties? how does that bar get met? >> you know, section 4 of the -- of that amendment doesn't really give me a specific duty or role in there. like you said, it falls on the cabinet and the members of the congress in all. i think i'm just like any other

member of the administration who sees him and talks to him regularly. if i saw something concerning and i had concerns about his cognitive ability or something to that extent, that i would bring that up to the proper people in the chain of command, maybe starting off with the chief of staff or something. that's what everyone else in the administration would do. so i don't think my role as a physician would be much different than any other member of the president's administration if they thought something like that were going on. i just think that once that happened, if it were someone else in the administration, i would be brought in to it to make a clinical assessment and see if i agreed with that assessment. you know, i think at this particular point, you know, based on my exam and, you know, the cognitive testing that we did and my day-to-day interactions with the president, the president is mentally very sharp, very intact. >> do you believe he's fit for duty? >> absolutely he's fit for duty. he will remain fit for duty for

the remainder of this term and another term if he's elected. >> dr. jackson, you talked about president trump and your daily dealings -- >> hang on -- >> how can you determine -- you can't determine four years out. >> i don't have a crystal ball. based on his cardiac assessment, you can make predictions. you can make cardiac calculations and you can see what his risk of having a cardiac or a cerebral vascular event might be. if you look at that where he falls out on his cardiac assessment, he falls in a category that pretends years of event-free living. so i mean, sure, i myself could have a big event tomorrow. i don't have that kind -- i'm not making that prediction. based on the clinical information that i have right now over the year of me observing him and the few things that have happened with him medically over the year, in

large part on the objective data that we gain from this particular exam, i feel very confident that he has a very strong and a very probable possibility of making a completely through his presidency with no serious medical issues. >> dr. jackson, so you talked about do -- dealing with president trump daily. what type of patient is he? does he take your advise? since you were dealing with his daily, has he had ongoing illness? sometimes you have given him sudafed. does he have any allergies or anything like that? >> he does. he suffers from the same viral upper respiratory stuff that you and i do. he gets congestion and things of that nature. for the most part, one of the things i found about president trump is that he's very independent when it comes to his medical stuff. he's -- i guess i -- the way he

grew up, he takes care of most of the little stuff himself. he doesn't come to me for band aids and things of that nature. i'm easily accessible. a lot of folks will. so you know, i think -- he's a good patient. sometimes he's -- i have to convince him why i want him to do something. so he doesn't just take everything i say and just take it at face value and move on. he will ask me questions and why would i do that or why. so he's very cooperative. he follows medical direction. he's like every other president i've taken care of. on occasion i have to get the first lady involved to make sure that he's doing what he's supposed to be doing. yeah, he's a good patient. >> dr. jackson, to make sure we're clear on this, when you analyzed his cognitive ability or do neurological functions, that's not the same thing as a psychiatric exam or psychological -- >> it's not. it's a screening for cognitive

impairment. >> dr. jackson, does the president do anything at all right now in terms of exercise? what is his daily exercise routine, if there is one? >> i'd say right now on a day-to-day basis, he doesn't have a dedicated defined exercise program. so that's what i'm working on. the good part is that we can build on that easily. [laughter] >> you said you discussed that with him. what would you like to see him start doing? >> like i said, he doesn't have a daily exercise regimen. some people exercise, some don't. some people don't -- haven't done that as part of their routine. i'd say that's the category he falls in right now. i would say though, you know, despite that, one of the things being with the president on a day-to-day basis that has been impressive to me is he has a lot of energy, a lot of energy and a

lot of stamina. we traveled overseas. we traveled last year. i was really surprised because i didn't know the president early on. the days that we would get these 14, 16-hour days and the staff is just spent after a while. you're like man, when are we going to the hotel? when are we going down? you have the issues of the different time zones. i'll tell you, out of everybody there, the president had more stamina and more energy than just about anybody there. he was the one that is liker with not going to skip this event, we're going to do this, we're doing that and stuck to the schedule despite the urging of some of us to let's just forget the rest of the day. >> explain how a guy that eats mcdonald's and all the diet cokes and never exercises is as good of shape as you say he's in. >> it's called genetics. i don't know. some people have just great genes. i told the president that if he had a healthier diet, he might live to be 200 years old.