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Doctor says note calling Trump's health "extraordinary" was written by Trump

The infamous bill of health was dictated over the phone by Trump, his gastroenterologist of 30 years said this week.

The doctor who once wrote a bill of health declaring President Donald Trump “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” now says the bombastic language sounded familiar for a reason: It was written by Donald Trump.

The gastroenterologist in question, Dr. Harold Bornstein, told CNN Tuesday that Trump dictated the infamous four-paragraph letter, which also described Trump’s “physical strength and stamina” as “extraordinary” and the president’s blood pressure and lab tests as “astonishingly excellent.”

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“He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter," said Bornstein, adding that Trump dictated the words to him as Bornstein was driving through Central Park. "I just made it up as I went along."

Bornstein originally stood by his letter. In August 2016, months after the letter was published in December 2015, Bornstein insisted to NBC that he’d written it, including the sentence, "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

"I like that sentence, to be quite honest with you and all the rest of them are either sick or dead,” said Bornstein, who has treated Trump for more than 30 years.

Bornstein also said Tuesday that Trump’s former bodyguard and White House aide Keith Schiller, along with two other men, showed up at his office and seized all of Trump’s medical records in February 2017. The men didn’t have what’s known as a HIPAA release, Bornstein said, which is a document that a patient may sign in order to authorize doctors to give out their medical records.

Bornstein called the move a “raid,” which he said left him feeling “raped, sad, and frightened.” He said it took place not long after he told the New York Times that Trump takes Propecia, which can treat male-pattern baldness.

A spokesperson for the White House didn’t immediately reply to a VICE News request for comment about Bornstein’s claim that Trump dictated the letter, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that taking custody of the president’s medical records is “standard operating procedure for a new president.”