WASHINGTON: Conflicting updates on his condition from doctors and aides, and expectation that he would be released from the military hospital on Monday after only a three-night stay to treat Covid-19, has ignited a furious debate on how seriously ill or otherwise US President Donald Trump is and whether there are political motives behind his hospitalisation drama.
At a time when coronavirus patients are hermetically isolated and not even allowed to meet family, a Covid+ve Trump came out of the Walter Reed hospital in a motorcade to greet couple hundred supporters gathered outside, alarming and angering medical professionals and political commentators who saw it as a reckless stunt. Although Trump was masked, he was in an enclosed presidential SUV with Secret Service personnel who were also masked but whose lives was seen to be put on line.
“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play,” raged Dr James Phillips, an attending physician at the hospital.
The Presidential caper came hours before yet another White House staffer, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, tested positive for Covid-19, making her the 13th person in Trump’s inner circle to be hit by the virus.
Like her boss, McEnany disdained masks for weeks while engaging journalists, leading to angry denunciation that this is the stupidest lot to ever occupy an executive office anywhere. “This isn’t happening in any other country on Earth,” former White House staffer Ben Rhodes fumed, and from the actor Sean Penn came the snarky comment: “Kayleigh McEnany is finally the perfect spokesperson and poster girl for this administration. Congratulations, Kayleigh!!”
Meanwhile, White House officials insisted that Trump’s brief sortie had been cleared by a medical team. But some of the most respected political commentators in the country were appalled by what was variously seen as reckless endangerment, machismo, or pure political stunt.
“Why is a sick President riding in an SUV waving to supporters outside Walter Reed, jeopardizing the Secret Service agents inside the car with him? asked Presidential historian Michael Bechloss, noting, amid growing speculation that the whole covid hospitalisation drama may have been staged for political purposes, “History shows that doctors must never ‘spin’ briefings on a sick President’s medical condition.”
The comment followed conflicting assessment and treatment for Trump’ s purported Covid+ve infection from his team of doctors and aides whose credibility is being called into question.
On the one hand, they appeared to repeatedly suggest that he was not all that unwell or in danger, but acknowledgement that he was put on oxygen twice and is being administered the most aggressive last-line treatment possible recommended only for extreme cases, including use of experimental drugs and a steroid, pointed to a President who was more ill than they were letting on.
One explanation for the contradiction is that Trump himself is reportedly pressing for aggressive treatment, chafing at being confined to the hospital and demanding to get back to the White House and action, despite the danger such premature steps could pose for him and to those around him.
The US President himself gave a hint of such thinking not only with his daring outside-the-hospital spin to greet his cultish supporters, but also musing that it was neither Presidential not American to be bullied by a virus and one should meet the challenge head-on.
“It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID. I learned by really going to school. This is the real school, and I get it and I understand it,” he said in a video message, referring to his contracting the virus and his subsequent hospitalisation.
On Monday morning, Trump returned to his trademark Twitter-storm, posting some 20 tweets mostly in all-caps urging people to vote on the basis of his purported successes, even as there was wild speculation on social media under hashtags such as #TrumpCovidHoax and #Covidiot. Reports also emerged that he was bored at the hospital and wanted out because it makes him look weak.
Meanwhile, there is renewed scrutiny of the sequence of events relating to how and when Trump caught the virus and when it was disclosed to White House staff, aides, and the public. According to the Wall Street Journal, the President knew from an early, preliminary test that he was covid+ve as early as Thursday evening, but did not disclose it pending a second affirmative test later that night, while revealing in a Fox News interview that his aide Hope Hicks had caught the virus.
“As the virus spread among the people closest to him, Trump also asked one adviser not to disclose results of their own positive test, saying, ‘Don’t tell anyone,’” the paper reported.
At a time when coronavirus patients are hermetically isolated and not even allowed to meet family, a Covid+ve Trump came out of the Walter Reed hospital in a motorcade to greet couple hundred supporters gathered outside, alarming and angering medical professionals and political commentators who saw it as a reckless stunt. Although Trump was masked, he was in an enclosed presidential SUV with Secret Service personnel who were also masked but whose lives was seen to be put on line.
“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play,” raged Dr James Phillips, an attending physician at the hospital.
The Presidential caper came hours before yet another White House staffer, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, tested positive for Covid-19, making her the 13th person in Trump’s inner circle to be hit by the virus.
Like her boss, McEnany disdained masks for weeks while engaging journalists, leading to angry denunciation that this is the stupidest lot to ever occupy an executive office anywhere. “This isn’t happening in any other country on Earth,” former White House staffer Ben Rhodes fumed, and from the actor Sean Penn came the snarky comment: “Kayleigh McEnany is finally the perfect spokesperson and poster girl for this administration. Congratulations, Kayleigh!!”
Meanwhile, White House officials insisted that Trump’s brief sortie had been cleared by a medical team. But some of the most respected political commentators in the country were appalled by what was variously seen as reckless endangerment, machismo, or pure political stunt.
“Why is a sick President riding in an SUV waving to supporters outside Walter Reed, jeopardizing the Secret Service agents inside the car with him? asked Presidential historian Michael Bechloss, noting, amid growing speculation that the whole covid hospitalisation drama may have been staged for political purposes, “History shows that doctors must never ‘spin’ briefings on a sick President’s medical condition.”
The comment followed conflicting assessment and treatment for Trump’ s purported Covid+ve infection from his team of doctors and aides whose credibility is being called into question.
On the one hand, they appeared to repeatedly suggest that he was not all that unwell or in danger, but acknowledgement that he was put on oxygen twice and is being administered the most aggressive last-line treatment possible recommended only for extreme cases, including use of experimental drugs and a steroid, pointed to a President who was more ill than they were letting on.
One explanation for the contradiction is that Trump himself is reportedly pressing for aggressive treatment, chafing at being confined to the hospital and demanding to get back to the White House and action, despite the danger such premature steps could pose for him and to those around him.
The US President himself gave a hint of such thinking not only with his daring outside-the-hospital spin to greet his cultish supporters, but also musing that it was neither Presidential not American to be bullied by a virus and one should meet the challenge head-on.
“It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID. I learned by really going to school. This is the real school, and I get it and I understand it,” he said in a video message, referring to his contracting the virus and his subsequent hospitalisation.
On Monday morning, Trump returned to his trademark Twitter-storm, posting some 20 tweets mostly in all-caps urging people to vote on the basis of his purported successes, even as there was wild speculation on social media under hashtags such as #TrumpCovidHoax and #Covidiot. Reports also emerged that he was bored at the hospital and wanted out because it makes him look weak.
Meanwhile, there is renewed scrutiny of the sequence of events relating to how and when Trump caught the virus and when it was disclosed to White House staff, aides, and the public. According to the Wall Street Journal, the President knew from an early, preliminary test that he was covid+ve as early as Thursday evening, but did not disclose it pending a second affirmative test later that night, while revealing in a Fox News interview that his aide Hope Hicks had caught the virus.
“As the virus spread among the people closest to him, Trump also asked one adviser not to disclose results of their own positive test, saying, ‘Don’t tell anyone,’” the paper reported.
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