{"id":165663,"date":"2026-03-17T00:22:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/165663\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:22:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:22:31","slug":"trump-reveals-rep-neal-dunns-terminal-diagnosis-which-wasnt-made-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/165663\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump reveals Rep. Neal Dunn’s ‘terminal diagnosis’ — which wasn’t made public"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump revealed Monday that\u00a0Rep. Neal Dunn\u2019s (R-Fla.)<\/a>\u00a0life was in danger due to a heart ailment, but that he made a miraculous recovery after the president deployed doctors to save both his life and the already slim House Republican majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would be dead by June,\u201d Trump said during an event in the White House East Room.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) seemed stunned by the president\u2019s candor, remarking: \u201cOK, that wasn\u2019t public, but, yeah, OK, it was grim.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump revealed during a White House press conference ahead of a Kennedy Center board meeting that Rep. Neal Dunn (Fla.) nearly died from a heart ailment. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The story emerged from a Trump-Kennedy Center meeting as the president praised Johnson for his prowess in navigating the tiny Republican majority, which currently stands at four seats.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath is very bad when you\u2019re the speaker, and you have a majority of two or three. But we had it, and then we had another death,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had one man who was very ill. It looked like he wasn\u2019t going to make it. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t I won\u2019t mention his name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson then identified the man as Dunn, 73, who represents part of the Florida panhandle, including Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

Dunn seen arriving for a House Republican Conference caucus meeting in the Capitol building on March 4, 2026. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cCongressman Neil Dunn of Florida had had some real health challenges, and it was very serious,\u201d the House speaker said. \u201cAnd I mentioned it to the president, and I said, \u2018Congressman Dunn is a real champion and a patriot, because he\u2019s still coming to work, and if others got this diagnosis, they would be apt to go home and retire.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was the diagnosis?\u201d Trump asked.<\/p>\n

Johnson replied, \u201cI think it was a terminal diagnosis,\u201d leading Trump to chime in with the \u201cdead by June\u201d comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the speaker chided the president about the non-public information, Johnson said: \u201cLong story short, the president called him to encourage him and thank him. And the president mentioned in the course of conversation, \u2018You know, I ought to get my doctors involved.\u2019 And they did, and within a number of hours, they took him to Walter Reed, emergency surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[Johnson] called to say that he was terminal, really bad heart, there\u2019s nothing they can do,\u201d Trump continued the story. \u201cI said, \u2018That\u2019s bad.\u2019 Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I realized I have doctors in the White House, and White House doctors are incredible and they\u2019ve helped me with other people. They\u2019re helping me with people right now, people that are very sick \u2014\u00a0 like, they\u2019re miracle workers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I said, \u2018I have to call them.\u2019 And I called the two doctors, they\u2019re both great, and they immediately went over to see the congressman, and he was on the operating table like two hours later, and it was a long operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson noted that Dunn\u2019s health issue wasn\u2019t public information before Trump\u2019s comments. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a long operation. They gave him more stents and more everything,\u201d Trump said, adding that Dunn has had \u201ca new lease on life. He has more energy than a man half his age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump concluded the tale by adding that \u201cbecause I don\u2019t want to have a terrible story about this, I did it for him first and for the vote second, but it was a close second, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Dunn, himself a medical doctor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The lawmaker announced in January of this year that he would retire rather than seek a sixth term in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump revealed Monday that\u00a0Rep. Neal Dunn\u2019s (R-Fla.)\u00a0life was in danger due to a heart ailment,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[858,153,7381,9,11,10,87,2134,7316,58],"class_list":["post-165663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-mike-johnson","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-republicans","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}