Dr. Ben Carson: ‘Elderly’ presidential candidates like Trump and Clinton should release medical history

Ben Carson says “elderly” presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton should disclose their current medical records to voters before the election.

“I think that somebody who is running for president of the United States, particularly if they’re elderly — and that would include both major candidates — should disclose their medical history,” Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential hopeful, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday. “And I’m not talking about from a year ago or two years ago. I’m talking about currently.”

“I think that is common sense,” Carson, who turns 65 next month, continued. “Because as people get older, things begin to happen to them.”

Both Trump and Clinton have each released statements from their doctors stating that they have a clean bill of health.

Last month, the Clinton campaign released a letter from her doctor showing results of a March 21 physical.

“She is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as president of the United States,” her doctor stated.

In December, the Trump campaign released a one-page letter filled with hyperbolic language, declaring the Republican hopeful would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

Trump, 70, would be the oldest newly elected president in U.S. history. (Ronald Reagan was just two weeks shy of 70 when he was inaugurated in 1981.) Clinton, who turns 69 in October, would be the second oldest.

Carson, one of Trump’s surrogates, also tossed some shade on recent claims by former New York City Rudy Giuliani about Clinton’s health. Many conspiracy theorists on the right have accused the Democratic nominee of hiding a severe illness from the public.

“All you’ve got to do is go online,” Giuliani said Sunday on Fox News. “Go online and put down ‘Hillary Clinton illness’ and take a look at the videos for yourself.”

“As a physician, physicians and scientists generally will not make a diagnosis based on something they see from a long distance,” Carson said Wednesday, smiling. “They want to have the facts.”

“My diagnosis would be that anybody that is elderly should expose their records,” he added. “And we the people should know what they are.”