Ben Terris

In fact, when I started reporting the story, I didn't expect to talk to him at all.

I didn't think he'd want to speak to me, but...

He made it known to his people that he wanted to defend the record of his health.

And when I got to the Oval Office, there were two men that were standing next to a Christmas tree, this is late December, and they were holding pieces of paper that on top said talking points.

I'm not sure I was supposed to see that, but it's my job to see things like that.

And these turned out to be his doctors from Walter Reed.

And the whole experience is very surreal, right?

Because you'd like to believe if you're talking to two doctors from Walter Reed, whose responsibility is to look after the president, that they'll tell it to you straight.

if you're holding talking points if you're saying things like they said to me about how donald trump is healthier than president barack obama was when he was in the white house it's just hard to believe and so am i able to get to the bottom of exactly how healthy or unhealthy donald trump is in my article no it's impossible to know he knows or maybe he knows his doctors know

but nobody is necessarily going to be able to tell me the honest truth because their job in this moment is not to tell the truth necessarily, it's to say the things that Donald Trump wants them to say.

Were they lying to me?

I don't know, but they certainly had the President of the United States looking across the Resolute Desk at them when I was asking questions of them about his health, and they were answering for both of us.

And so I kind of left this experience, you know,

about how Donald Trump's health is, but I did have a pretty good window into the health of the presidency, uh, to how Donald Trump operates, to how he gets people around him to say what he wants them to say, this kind of control he's able to maintain over his inner circle, and kind of the lack of control he has in being able to convince people out in the broader public that, you know, things are as he wants them to be.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he basically is saying that he's hiding from an almost 80-year-old man every time he goes on an airplane with him because he doesn't want to be caught sleeping.

You know, I've described this to people.

The experience of reporting this story was sort of like sitting for a series of plays where I was the only member of the audience, where they were putting on these shows just for me.

Shows, you know.

marco rubio took time out of his very busy schedule he's like the busiest man in washington he's got 50 jobs or whatever and he took time out of his day to sit with me in the white house and talk about how he can't even keep up with this 80 year old man this almost 80 year old man he you know hides from him on the airplane when he's sleeping his his memory isn't nearly as good as the president's and this was just one of many conversations that went exactly like this i talked to all sorts of people from trump's inner circle who would say

I can't keep up with him.