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Concerns about Donald Trump’s true health rose on Saturday as the US president’s battle with the coronavirus raised questions about the White House’s transparency and plunged the election into further chaos and controversy.
Informational meetings outside the hospital where Trump is a patient raised more questions than answers.
Doctors lined in white coats insisted that Trump, who was admitted to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday night after being diagnosed with Covid-19, was “very well” and “there is no cause for concern. “
But moments later, confusion reigned and fears for the president grew when it emerged that a separate, nameless briefing had been given to reporters assigned to cover the president, and he was less optimistic.
“The president’s vital signs during the last 24 hours were very worrying and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are not yet on a clear path to a full recovery, ”the source said, according to the White House press group.
Kaitlan collins
(@kaitlancollins)This statement should not be allowed to run in the background. If you’re giving a more troubling assessment of the president’s condition than the one the doctor just gave, it should be on the record. https://t.co/qDxa5N71Vd
He expressed concern that the president’s condition was worse than previously thought and that the public was being misled.
Sean Conley, the president’s personal physician, who led the official medical briefing outside the hospital, was evasive when asked if Trump had ever received oxygen after his coronavirus diagnosis this week.
And Conley was reluctant to provide more details about the president’s symptoms and the chronology of his illness, including the extent of his fever and the effects of the virus on the 74-year-old man’s body.
He said Trump had not been on oxygen while he was with his team, but would not answer direct questions about Friday. Later, the Associated Press news agency reported through an unidentified source that the president received supplemental oxygen while still in the White House, before being admitted to the hospital.
By contrast, when asked about reports that Trump had had difficulty breathing, Conley was unequivocal in saying that he “has not and never has.”
Equally confusing was Conley’s initial claim that Trump was first diagnosed 72 hours earlier, suggesting that Trump tested positive on Wednesday, before traveling to public campaign events in Minnesota and New Jersey. But a little later, the White House tried to clarify by saying that Conley meant that it was now the third day since the diagnosis, and that Trump was diagnosed Thursday night.
Rebecca ballhaus
(@rebeccaballhaus)A White House official clarifies Dr. Conley’s chronology. It says that Conley meant it is day 3, not 72 hours later (diagnosis was made Thursday night) and that Garibaldi meant that it has been two days, not 48 hours, since Regeneron was administered Thursday night. night.
Meanwhile, with the clock ticking in the November 3 presidential election, Trump’s admission to the hospital threw an already tumultuous reelection campaign into greater disarray.
Several senior campaign officials and Republican figures, including campaign manager Bill Stepien, three U.S. senators and former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, were also confirmed to have contracted Covid-19. Although the time, place and source of the infections have not been confirmed, they attended an event increasingly viewed as a possible “super-spreader”: Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s announcement at the White House last Saturday night. being Trump’s last nominee to the Supreme Court.
More than 100 great Republicans gathered together without masks both inside the White House and outdoors in the Rose Garden during the event.
The president’s sudden quarantine and diagnosis by his campaign manager immediately put his re-election campaign on a rollback, while Democratic candidate Joe Biden went ahead with a speech in Michigan, while wearing a mask, after testing negative on Covid on Friday.
Biden’s campaign said Saturday it would suspend “negative” campaign ads critical of Trump.
Conley, the president’s physician, insisted on Saturday that Trump had made progress, was doing “very well” and had received an experimental antibody drug and started a course of the antiviral drug remdesivir.
“He’s not on oxygen right now,” Conley said. “All the indicators are that it will continue without oxygen in the future. Right now, the team and I are very happy with the progress he has made. We remain cautiously optimistic but he is doing very well. “
However, Conley admitted that the treatment program was in its early stages and that the worst effect of the coronavirus on a patient may not manifest itself for seven to 10 days.
Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump remains in the White House experiencing only minor symptoms after being diagnosed with coronavirus alongside the President, according to their own social networks.
Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, and Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and Trump adviser, also contracted the disease.
Mike Pence, the vice president, who will take over the levers of the administration if Trump dies or is incapacitated, announced Saturday that he had tested negative for coronavirus for a second day. He is not in quarantine, although he was in the front row at Barrett’s event in the Rose Garden of the White House last weekend.
“This is a pivotal moment for the US government,” political analyst Samantha Vinograd, a senior advisor to the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware, who is not affiliated with Biden’s campaign, said in an analysis for CNN.
“There is a global message that the White House would not or could not do what was necessary to protect its own staff and the president … [and a] strong narrative that the White House will not or cannot do what it takes to protect Americans. “
Additional reporting by Tom Lutz and Emily Holden.
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