What evidence links the Queens podiatrist to Trump’s 1968 medical deferment and what have family members said?
Executive summary
Reporting ties a Queens podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, to Donald Trump’s 1968 “bone spurs” medical deferment chiefly through New York Times investigations and contemporaneous city records showing Braunstein rented office space from Fred C. Trump; Braunstein’s daughters have told reporters their father framed the diagnosis as a “favor” to Fred Trump, though no clinic records have surfaced to independently confirm the medical finding [1] [2] [3]. The evidence is circumstantial — tenancy records, recollections from family and colleagues, and Selective Service classification timelines — and leaves open alternative explanations because the primary medical documentation has not been produced in public reporting [3] [4].
1. The paper trail and how reporters connected the dots
Investigative reporters re-examined Trump’s draft record and, prompted by an anonymous tip, searched city directories and interviews to identify a podiatrist who rented space in a Trump-owned building in Jamaica, Queens; those records pointed to Dr. Larry Braunstein as a tenant of Fred Trump’s properties in the late 1960s, which provided the first tangible link between the family and a foot specialist who could have signed a deferment note [3] [1]. Selective Service records show Trump exhausted student deferments and was reclassified 1A in mid-1968 before receiving a temporary 1-Y medical classification for heel spurs that later became a permanent 4-F status — a timeline that makes the October 1968 medical finding pivotal to his not being inducted [4] [1].
2. Family recollections: daughters’ account of a “favor”
Braunstein’s daughters have told The New York Times and other outlets that their father often said he provided the diagnosis as a courtesy to Fred Trump, effectively characterizing the interaction as a favor rather than a routine clinical finding; those accounts are the most direct testimony tying the podiatrist to Trump’s deferment and suggest an element of social or landlord influence in how the diagnosis arose [2] [5]. Reporters who interviewed the daughters also found no extant medical paperwork left with the family by Braunstein and said the doctor who later bought the practice was unaware of documentation that would corroborate the daughters’ recollection [6] [5].
3. Other medical actors and overlapping corroboration — limited and indirect
Reports name a second podiatrist, Manny Weinstein, who moved into a Trump-owned apartment building in 1968 and may have had interactions relevant to the deferment, adding complexity but not direct proof; colleagues and local podiatrists helped reporters reconstruct who practiced in those buildings but did not produce independent treatment records for Trump [1] [6]. Trump himself has been inconsistent in public accounts — at times citing a “very strong” letter from a physician but not providing documents — leaving reporters to rely on property leases, directories, and witness memories rather than contemporaneous medical charts [1] [4].
4. What the evidence is not — and why the case remains partly unresolved
No contemporaneous medical records signed by Braunstein proving a heel-spur diagnosis have been publicly produced or verified in the reporting assembled by the Times and other outlets; the linkage therefore rests on tenancy records, family testimony, and the Selective Service classification sequence rather than a smoking-gun chart or certificate [3] [6]. Alternative viewpoints exist: skeptics argue the bone-spur diagnosis could have been clinically legitimate or issued by another practitioner, and defenders note Trump’s own statements about a doctor’s letter — but reporting has been unable to definitively confirm either scenario because primary medical documents are absent from public record [4] [3].
5. Hidden agendas and how to read the sources
Coverage emerged in a politically charged era and has been amplified by outlets ranging from the New York Times to partisan websites; while the Times-based reconstructions emphasize archival records and interviews [3], opinionated outlets and campaign materials have used the story for both investigative and political narratives, so readers should weigh the provenance of each claim — distinguishing city-directory evidence and family recollection from conjecture about favors or intentional draft avoidance [7] [8]. The most responsible conclusion from the assembled reporting is that Braunstein is plausibly the podiatrist connected to Trump’s 1968 deferment through his landlord relationship with Fred Trump and through his daughters’ public statements, but the absence of contemporaneous medical documentation means the case cannot be proven conclusively from the published reporting [2] [6].