Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, the internist known for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and giving an on-air remote assessment of former President Donald Trump after he got the coronavirus, put President Joe Biden’s odds of surviving a second term at 50%. (Watch the video below.)
Siegel has never treated Biden. But that didn’t stop him from weighing in on his health Thursday on “Fox News Tonight.”
Guest host Piers Morgan told Siegel that he wasn’t concerned about Biden’s age ― 80 ― “but that he seems to be degenerating.”
Siegel called for Biden to undergo cognitive testing and noted the president’s past surgeries for brain aneurysms and his atrial fibrillation.
“So yes, there is probably a 50% chance, God forbid, that he wouldn’t survive another term just on the basis of his underlying health issues and that he’s on blood thinners for this irregular [heart] rhythm,” Siegel said.
Siegel ― whom CNN anchor Brianna Keilar once called a “sycophant” who dispensed “the worst medical advice that money can buy” ― previously interviewed Trump about a cognitive test in which the then-president bragged he was able to repeat “person, woman, man, camera, TV.” He called Trump cognitively advanced while questioning Biden’s health. He also fed Trump’s assertion that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs.
But he was willing to put Biden’s life expectancy on the flip of a coin as a man of medicine.
As for voter concerns about both Biden and Trump’s age and condition ― the former president is 77 ― here’s another reason to take Siegel’s guessing with a grain of salt. A longevity modeling company in April said that actuarial data indicates both candidates would likely live beyond a second term, the Financial Times reported in April. The data put the 80-year-old Biden’s demise at age 91 and Trump’s at 90.
That should be taken with a grain of salt as well.
