Opinion Today: We deserve answers about Trump’s health

August 12, 2026

Joseph Rushmore for The New York Times

Notable

How Abdul El-Sayed can win Michigan. “The case most deserving of attention is in Michigan, so here is some free advice for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate there. Why him? Because his victory or defeat could determine whether Trump continues to be able to rule as a monarch without any congressional oversight.”

— Thomas L. Friedman, an Opinion columnist

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College has to be about more than getting a job. “Who knows how many kids we have already trapped in a cutthroat competition to get a small number of finance or tech jobs, when their brains might have been put to better use creating the next great piece of literature, designing a new kind of green building, or working in a lab that could lead to the next medical breakthrough?”

— Jessica Grose, an Opinion writer

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I got a face-lift at 47. I don’t regret it. “I’m not going to perpetuate the lie that my new face came from drinking a lot of water or getting a lot of sleep. I’m going to talk about it — because it’s not fair that women are confronted with both unrealistic beauty standards and lies about how they’ve been achieved.”

— Molly Jong-Fast, a contributing Opinion writer

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Spotlight

President Trump walking off a stage. He is wearing a dark suit, and there is a blue curtain in the foreground and American flags in the background.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

We Don’t Know What’s Going On With Trump’s Health, and We Deserve Answers

The president has not looked well. Americans should know what is going on.

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ICYMI

They’re the firefighters of medicine. “Street medicine embodies what health care should be: tending to those who need it most. It is also a stark indictment of our society that such care is as in demand as it is.”

— Helen Ouyang, an emergency physician

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Listen (or Watch)

The Opinions

Why the U.S. Economy Needs A.I. — Bubble or Not

And what a hedge fund’s $35 billion loss reveals about the state of the industry.

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A partially open door reveals a doctor’s table and stool next to it. No one is present.

He Saw Specialist After Specialist. He Died When No One Gave Him a Flu Shot.

The Trump administration has dismantled the agency that helps research make its way into medical practice.

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Guest Essay

Pop Music Is the Problem

The genre was shaped by exclusion, not expansion.

By Dan Charnas

In Your Words

Re: “He’s Not a Democrat. Democrats Love Him Anyway.”

Tina

Nebraska

In Nebraska these labels really matter. There are whole swathes of people who would never countenance voting for a democrat. But someone with the independent label might get a look long enough for them to actually encounter his ideas and consider them long to actually decide if they agree with him. It's as my mother said about her life as a republican until Trump turned up and made her open her eyes to what Republicans were all about, "It was never really about the policy, you just voted for your team."

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