Typhoid Donnie

Mr. Trump secured a statement from the White House physician clearing him to return to public activities on Saturday and then promptly said he would try to hold a campaign rally in Florida that day, two days earlier than the doctor had originally said was needed to determine whether he was truly out of danger. The president again dismissed the virus, saying, “when you catch it, you get better,” ignoring the more than 212,000 people in the United States who did not get better and died from it.

  NYT

Mr. Superspreader is a super prick.

In his statement on Thursday night, the physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, reported that Mr. Trump “has responded extremely well to treatment” and that by Saturday, “I fully expect the president’s return to public engagement.” Dr. Conley, who has previously acknowledged providing the public with a rosy view of the president’s condition to satisfy his patient, contradicted his own timeline offered upon Mr. Trump’s release from the hospital, when he said doctors wanted to “get through to Monday.”

All of Trump's doctors seem to have been whores.

The president castigated his own team, declaring that Attorney General William P. Barr would go down in history “as a very sad, sad situation” if he did not indict Democrats like Mr. Biden and former President Barack Obama.

[...]

“He’s got all the information he needs,” the president said. “They want to get more, more, more, they keep getting more. I said, ‘You don’t need any more.’”

[...]

“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we’ll just have to go, because I won’t forget it,” Mr. Trump said.

Huh?

Note to Bill Barr: You simply can't debase yourself enough to avoid taking shit from Trump sooner or later. Did you think you were somehow special?

Ditto to Mike Pompeo.

He complained that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had not released Hillary Clinton’s emails, saying, “I’m not happy about him for that reason.”

[...]

The president was all over the map in [...] two Fox phone calls, throwing out unsubstantiated or discredited accusations, explaining that he wanted to bring home troops from Afghanistan to be ready to fight China or Russia if necessary and calling Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan “the lockup queen” even as his own Justice Department was announcing the existence of an anti-government group’s plot to kidnap her.

As for his opponents, he said on Fox Business that Mr. Biden “wouldn’t be president for two months” because “he’s not mentally capable,” leaving Ms. Harris to then take over the presidency. “She’s a communist,” he said. “We’re going to have a communist.” A few hours later, Mr. Trump reposted Twitter messages claiming that Speaker Nancy Pelosi might be orchestrating “a coup” against him.

[...]

Ms. Pelosi said she planned to introduce legislation on Friday creating a commission on presidential capacity to review the health of a commander in chief under provisions of the 25th Amendment providing for the temporary transfer of power to the vice president in case of inability to discharge the duties of the office. “Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation,” Mr. Trump replied on Twitter.

He's high as a kite on dexamethasone.

Mr. Trump told his Fox interviewers that he felt well despite his hospitalization, although during his evening phone call with Sean Hannity, his voice at times sounded raspy and twice he had to clear his throat.

[...]

Watching the news coverage and angry at the state of the race, Mr. Trump has been imploring aides to let him resume campaign rallies as soon as this weekend. He showed up again in the Oval Office on Thursday despite efforts to get him to remain in the residence until he was more fully recovered. In addition to the attempt to hold a rally in Florida on Saturday, he said he would try to stage one the following day in Pennsylvania.

He is in no shape to go campaigning. Not to mention, he's contagious.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that a person infected with the coronavirus can be with other people 10 days after symptoms first appear if the patient has gone 24 hours free of fever without the use of medication that reduces temperatures and if other symptoms are improving.

[...]

Mr. Trump’s doctors have said he has not experienced fever in days, but the dexamethasone steroid he is taking is known to hide a fever.

[...]

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, even indicated that he was boycotting the White House because of its lax handling of the virus.

“I haven’t actually been to the White House since August the 6th because my impression was that their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I suggested that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” Mr. McConnell told reporters.

Mitch may be evil, but he's not stupid.

Experts said resuming a public schedule might worsen Mr. Trump’s condition, which could still rapidly deteriorate in the next several days. Covid-19, an unpredictable disease, can suddenly and unexpectedly worsen during a patient’s second week of illness. Based on the information provided, “No, I would not clear him to start public engagements on Saturday,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, where she conducts and advises on Covid-19 clinical trials.

[...]

[Trump] said he was no longer taking the experimental drugs used to treat the virus, but he added that he was still taking a steroid [dexamethasone] that doctors say can produce bursts of energy, euphoria and even a sense of invulnerability.

He'll be asking for them until the day he dies now.

“I felt pretty lousy,” Mr. Trump said. But, he added, “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young.” He once again played down the severity of the disease. “Now what happens is you get better,” he said. “That’s what happens, you get better.”

Tell that to 210,000 dead Americans.

Mr. Trump later released a video addressed specifically to senior citizens, who were once his political base but have increasingly soured on him as they have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, according to polls.

“To my favorite people in the world, the seniors,” he said in the video. “I’m a senior. I know you don’t know that. Nobody knows that. Maybe you don’t have to tell them. But I’m a senior.”

I thought he was joking when he said he was extremely young. I guess not.

Acknowledging that he had been “very sick,” he praised the experimental treatments he was given for the virus and vowed to provide them to seniors. “I want you to get the same care that I got,” he said. “You’re going to get the same medicine. You’re going to get it free, no charge, and we’re going to get it to you soon.”

That is complete and utter bullshit.

Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former aide to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, said that the Trump campaign was entering a dangerous period, one when a campaign heading for a possible defeat can become treacherous.

“The knives come out, the donors flee and the candidate throws embarrassing Hail Marys,” he said. “Most politicians can handle losing a race, but they really don’t want to be embarrassed. When a loss seems inevitable, people who want a future in politics start looking out for their own interests. People start looking over their shoulders.”

And they may well have waited too long to act.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What's happening - Part 2

Doctors and members of the White House staff provided conflicting information about the timeline and progression of the president’s illness, making a bad situation even worse. Asked what it’s been like for insiders trying to get information about the president and the virus spreading through the government, a senior White House official told Intelligencer, “That’s easy. We don’t get any.”

[...]

“There are reports that COVID is spreading like wildfire through the White House. There are hundreds and hundreds of people who work on-complex, some who have families with high-risk family members. Since this whole thing started, not one email has gone out to tell employees what to do or what’s going on.”

[...]

Hope Hicks, one of the president’s closest aides, tested positive for COVID-19 just before Trump boarded Marine One en route to a fundraiser at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. The White House sought to keep the story from getting out, which meant keeping much of its own staff — who, like the president, had been exposed to Hicks — in the dark. More than a dozen people connected to the White House tested positive by Saturday evening.

[...]

Standing in front of Walter Reed in his white coat and flanked by other doctors, [White House physician Sean] Conley repeatedly dodged questions as he tried to present a rosy picture of the health of the leader of the free world. According to the White House and Conley, Trump’s stay at Walter Reed was a precaution rather than an indication that his prognosis was growing more serious.

But as he performed this delicate dance of obfuscation, Conley and his colleagues inadvertently offered a new timeline for the president’s diagnosis and treatment — suggesting that the information previously provided by the White House was false. The doctors disclosed that it had been “72 hours” since the president was diagnosed and “48 hours” since he was first given an experimental therapy. That would mean he was known to be sick well before the public learned in a tweet Trump sent at 12:54 a.m Friday that he and the First Lady had tested positive.

[...]

After the press conference, the group of reporters that always accompanies the president was given an anonymous statement from “a source familiar with the president’s health.” [...] “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.”

The source turned out to be White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

[...]

Later in the afternoon, the press reported what the doctors refused to disclose: The president had received oxygen to help him breathe.

[...]

Conley attempted to clean up part of his mess. In a statement released through the White House press office, he insisted he misspoke when he said the president had been diagnosed “72 hours ago” and had actually meant to say “day three.” He also said he misspoke about when the experimental therapy was administered to the president: on “day two,” not “48 hours ago,” as Dr. Brian Garibaldi, a well-respected pulmonologist at Johns Hopkins hospital, had stated. Garibaldi and Johns Hopkins declined to comment.

[...]

Panagis Galiastatos, a pulmonary and critical-care physician at Johns Hopkins, told Intelligencer that by taking remdesivir, Trump’s doctors had committed to the fact that the president is suffering from a “moderate” or “severe” case of COVID-19. Galiastatos defined moderate as requiring hospitalization and severe as close to being committed to an intensive-care unit.

Galiastatos, who said he cared for more than 100 COVID patients in the Johns Hopkins ICU, said that his suspicion was that Trump “probably had COVID-19 around Wednesday” and that when you develop symptoms, you are “probably contagious several days before.” If this is correct, it would mean Trump could have spread the virus during Tuesday’s presidential debate, when he stood 12 feet and eight inches from Joe Biden and shouted in his direction for 90 minutes.

[...]

This is the type of information the public should be learning from the president’s medical team, but it’s becoming clear that those officials cannot be trusted to be any more truthful about Trump’s condition than this White House has been about anything else.   New York Magazine Intelligencer

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Totally expected:

Might not be enough to save his job.

About this picture...

This is Dr. Sean Conley today giving a (likely false - see Mark Meadows' remarks to correspondents) report on Trump's condition today.

What is the phalanx of seeming medical personnel for?  Particularly the one in what looks like somebody else's pants and lab coat that are four sizes too big.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Just another joke

The official who was previously tapped by former President Obama to lead the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, slammed the White House physician’s recent memo summarizing President Trump’s second physical health exam in office.

“No doctor can predict someone’s future health,” Ronald Klain, who also served as chief of staff to former Vice President Joe Biden, said in a tweet on Saturday morning.

“This is a disgrace to an office with a great tradition of professionalism. Just another institution turned into a joke by a President determined to make anyone willing to submit an instrument of his lies,” he continued.

  The Hill

Sadly, there are always people willing to submit.

And while I agree with everything Klain has said, it's probably a bit misleading, if not outright disingenuous, to quote him while attributing his Obama appointment without mentioning his qualifications for that job.

President Barack Obama on Friday named a former longtime top aide to coordinate the government’s efforts to combat Ebola, a veteran insider with experience in navigating the government bureaucracy but also a man with no medical background.

  McClatchy

No medical background.  He's a Harvard educated lawyer and columnist for the Washington Post "focused on public policy, legal issues and political affairs."



I doubt Klain is someone whose opinions Trumpanzees are going to respect.  Not that they'd respect anyone saying something negative about their lord and leader.

Also, I'm pretty sure Dr. Conley didn't write that memo any more than Jackson or Bornstein wrote their reports on Trump's physical condition.  But, he did put his name to it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



In a nutshell.

Trump's physical

"The President is very grateful for the outstanding care he received today..."

A bit odd, isn't it?  Are we sure Dr. Conley wrote this himself?  Shades of Dr. Bornstein.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Because, why not!?

President Trump has re-nominated White House doctor Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson to be promoted to two-star admiral amid the Pentagon’s ongoing investigation into Jackson regarding alleged misconduct.

The White House sent a letter to the Senate on Jan. 15 offering Jackson’s promotion for consideration, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

[...]

Jackson faces a series of allegations including drinking on the job, overprescribing medications and creating a hostile work environment.

  The Hill

Lying about the president's health sn't worth investigating.

He is no longer serving as Trump’s personal physician, but he remains a Navy physician assigned to the White House. Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley now serves as physician to the president.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  I wondered when the next physical was due.