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It was a remarkable attempt to turn his still-ongoing illness into a show of force, even as it underscored his long-standing practice of denying the severity of the pandemic and minimizing its risks despite the more than 200,000 Americans killed.
“Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it rule your life,” Trump wrote several hours before carefully exiting the hospital’s golden doors, even as his doctors warned that he was still “not out of the woods.” “
Wearing a white cloth mask and navy blue suit, Trump gave up several thumbs and fist punches as he descended the front steps of the hospital toward his waiting helicopter. He did not respond when asked how many of his employees had tested positive.
After a flight over Washington, Trump landed on the South Lawn and proceeded an unusual route up some stairs to the first-floor balcony, where aides had placed a row of American flags.
Trump removed his mask and posed in greeting as his helicopter departed before entering. The building you are returning to has become a viral contagion center, in part due to ignorance of mitigation measures.
Trump then posted a propaganda video after seemingly remaking his entry into the White House for effect. He also seemed to say nonsense that he stood up to the coronavirus because he “had to” as a “leader,” a deeply misleading message to convey.
“We will go back. We will go back to work. We will be in front. As their leader, he had to do that. He knew there was danger, but he had to do it,” Trump says in the video. “I stayed in front. I led. No one who is a leader would not do what I did. I know there is a risk of danger. That’s okay. And now I’m better, and maybe I’m immune? Know. But no. let it rule your lives. Come out, be careful. “
The message was jarring not only because it was irresponsible, but because it came from a current coronavirus patient who has experienced severe symptoms of the disease and whose recovery has included experimental treatments not available to most Americans.
As more of his aides test positive for the disease and questions arise about what steps have been taken to reduce the spread, Trump’s doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, offered few details about how members of the group would be kept safe. staff after Trump’s return to the White House, which is equipped with its own medical suite.
He also continued to hide in critical pieces of information, such as when Trump last tested negative for coronavirus or what was revealed in a lung scan. He said privacy rules prevented him from disclosing those details, even though he and other doctors treating the president offered very specific figures in other areas that seemed to show Trump’s condition improving.
He said Trump had been given another round of the antiviral drug remdesivir and that he has continued to take dexamethasone, a steroid. He will receive another round of remdesivir at the White House on Tuesday.
Earlier, Trump’s doctors had said his condition required intravenous medication and, on at least two occasions, supplemental oxygen.
On Monday, Conley insisted that Trump was well enough to return home.
“He has met or exceeded all hospital discharge criteria,” he told reporters outside of Walter Reed. “We plan to take him home.”
Even when Trump told his assistants that he was feeling better and that he was anxious to get out of the hospital, some aides encouraged him to stay, warning him of poor optics if his condition worsened and required a second hospitalization.
Trump insisted on returning, however, and made the announcement on Twitter on Monday.
“I’ll be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 pm feeling really good!” Trump tweeted Monday afternoon.
“We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs and knowledge,” he continued. “I feel better than 20 years ago!”
His message, which downplays the severity of the virus, will do little to dispel the idea that his own disregard for mitigation measures is what got Trump to the hospital in the first place.
And his mention of therapies to combat the virus will have little application to regular Americans facing a positive diagnosis; Medical experts have suggested that Trump’s combination of experimental treatments and therapies would be largely out of the reach of anyone except the president.
Speaking Monday, Conley said that 72 hours had passed since Trump’s last fever and that his oxygen levels were normal.
“He may not be completely out of the woods yet,” Conley acknowledged, but said his current condition supported a “safe return home.”
Bored and eager to appear healthy, Trump had called for an early release and on Sunday made a foray outside the hospital walls to step in slow motion to greet supporters gathered on a nearby road.
People who have spoken to the president in the past day say he sounds in a good mood even as he pushed for his release. Trump was demanding to return to the White House on Sunday, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN, but his medical team convinced him to stay.
“He ended up with the hospital,” one of the sources said of Trump’s mood on Sunday. Trump is concerned that seeing him hospitalized “makes him look weak,” the other source said.
Not all of his allies agree; The president is warned that if he were to rush out of the hospital and then have a setback that requires his readmission, it would be detrimental not only to his health but also politically.
McEnany tests positive
Although the president’s health appears to be improving, the situation within his administration was just stabilizing. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany wrote that she tested positive Monday morning after a series of negative tests over the weekend.
Combined with positive tests from two of McEnany’s deputies, that brings the number of Trump insiders who have contracted the coronavirus to more than a dozen, including his wife, senior adviser, personal assistant, campaign manager, two. debate preparation advisers, party president and three Republican senators.
McEnany spoke briefly to reporters at the White House on Sunday without wearing a mask. In his statement, he said that “no reporter, producer or member of the press is listed as close contacts of the White House Medical Unit.”
But his diagnosis increased the impression that the virus was spreading rapidly among Trump’s staff, who only started wearing masks regularly as he was transported to hospital on Friday. Some aides have expressed frustration at the lack of communication about the situation.
Aware of Trump’s aversion to appearing weak, the White House has tried to control the lens of his illness with misleading reports, posing images and the reckless photoshoot outside the hospital.
On Monday morning, the president’s advisers indicated that he would likely return to the White House in the evening, a prospect first raised by one of his doctors during Sunday’s briefing. The messages were funneled through Fox News, which the president has been watching almost without interruption inside the presidential suite at Walter Reed, often upset by what he considers exaggerated descriptions of his health.
The decision to publicly telegraph a planned discharge date sparked some anxiety among the president’s aides, who feared optics if Trump does not return to the White House on Monday.
It has also raised concern that the president is pressuring his medical team to leave the hospital earlier than is reasonable.
On Saturday, Conley said the most critical stretch of Trump’s illness will come seven to 10 days after the diagnosis.
According to current calculations of a positive test on Thursday night, the president on Monday was only four or five days old. But without knowing when the president’s last negative test took place – information that the White House and Conley have refused to provide – it’s unclear how far along the president is in the disease.
As he and his medical team considered the timing of his possible discharge, Trump issued a furious explosion of tweets in capital letters related to the presidential election.
“NEXT YEAR WILL BE THE BEST OF ALL. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE !!!!!” she wrote, followed by nearly 20 messages, each of which lists a topic that she hopes voters will find important.
Car ride
The surprise outing, where Trump greeted supporters through the window while wearing a mask in the back of his SUV, was an attempted show of force that showed the president’s questionable judgment, his willingness to endanger his staff and the fact that it still does. They don’t seem to understand the seriousness of a highly contagious and deadly disease.
A Walter Reed GP strongly criticized Trump’s drive by Sunday as a risk to the lives of the Secret Service agents who were accompanying him in his truck.
“Every person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘step’ now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They can get sick. They can die. For political theater. Ordered by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is a insanity, “Dr. James Phillips tweeted.
Despite the risk it poses to others in the hospital, the driver and safety, White House spokesman Judd Deere said “the medical team authorized the move as safe” and that “appropriate precautions” were taken, “including personal protective equipment”.
The White House Office of Management sent its first email to all staff Sunday night since Trump tested positive for coronavirus early Friday morning. Until then, employees had not received a word on whether to go to work or stay home as several of their colleagues tested positive. Surprisingly, the email, which was seen by CNN, states that they should not contact the White House testing office if they have symptoms.
CNN’s Jim Acosta, Kaitlan Collins, Dana Bash, Jeremy Diamond, Gloria Borger, and Allie Malloy contributed to this report.
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