Rep. Lieu suggests Trump’s ‘erratic behavior’ due to terminal illness

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) questioned President Donald Trump’s health Wednesday after the White House abruptly canceled a bill signing ceremony, citing the president’s “erratic behavior” and raising the possibility that he may have received a drug reserved for patients with terminal illnesses.

Lieu, who serves as vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, linked the canceled signing to a STAT News report identifying a 79-year-old patient who received retatrutide, an unapproved Eli Lilly obesity and diabetes drug reserved for patients with serious or life-threatening conditions. The request was filed in April by Ranganath Muniyappa, a senior NIH clinician, through the FDA’s compassionate use program. Trump, who turned 80 this month, was 79 at the time.

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) separately sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expressing concern that someone may be “bending the rules of a federal program, and exerting improper political pressure, in order to provide a well-connected individual with free access to an exclusive prescription drug.”

Trump said he canceled the signing of a bipartisan housing bill to pressure Congress into first passing the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote. But Lieu pointed to a series of documented health concerns, including the president’s bruised hands, swollen lower legs, chronic venous insufficiency and his most recent physical examination showing he weighs 238 pounds, up 14 pounds from 2025 and near the threshold for clinical obesity. Earlier this month, he played footage of Trump with his eyes closed during Cabinet meetings, which the latter has attributed to boredom.

“This erratic behavior from the President is very concerning … What we know is his report saying that one person in America got this special new drug was a 79-year-old person who is very high profile, and this drug can only be given to someone under the compassionate use provision, meaning you do that if someone basically has a terminal illness,” Lieu said.

The White House, in response, denied Trump was the patient. Communications Director Steven Cheung, one of the closest Asian Americans in the president’s orbit, responded on X by calling Lieu a “dumbass.” “He probably spent hours laughing to himself thinking that peddling this lie would be funny. Sadly for Ted, there’s no special new drug to cure being a bitch,” Cheung continued, without addressing the underlying questions about Trump’s fitness or drug access.

For AAPI communities, however, those questions have real stakes. The compassionate use program exists to help critically ill patients reach treatments that are otherwise out of reach. Allegations that it may have been manipulated for a sitting president feed into community concerns about whether federal health programs operate by the same rules for everyone.

As of press time, the identity of the patient who received retatrutide has not been confirmed.