A strongly medicated President Donald Trump bolted from his VIP hospital bubble Monday, staging a bizarre White House comeback that included an irresponsible mask removal and a reckless pronouncement there is nothing to fear from Covid-19, which has already killed 210,000 Americans.
His actions show him, if anything, entrenched deeper in denial over the virus than ever before and more committed to trashing scientific protocols that could slow the pandemic.
"We're going back. We're going back to work. We're gonna be out front. As your leader I had to do that. I knew there's danger to it but I had to do it," Trump says in a strange campaign video whipped up by aides within an hour of his return to the White House, in which the President framed himself as a warrior who took on the virus and won.
"I stood out front. I led. Nobody that's a leader would not do what I did. I know there's a risk, there's a danger," Trump said, despite his doctors earlier saying he is still not fully "out of the woods" in his fight with the virus.
A still infectious Trump ignored advisers who wanted him to stay admitted and instead rode Marine One from Walter Reed Military National Military Medical Center back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Profound questions remain about the state of the President's health after he tested positive for the disease last week and suffered two dips in oxygen levels. A torrent of misinformation surrounds his condition, including when he actually got sick. That health information is crucial to establishing whether the President went ahead with official duties while potentially infectious with Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the virus continues to rip through the White House, which has become a hotspot amid flagrant violations of social distancing.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said she was positive -- "after testing negatively" -- in a possible attempt to excuse her failure to wear a mask when briefing reporters Sunday. Two of her staffers have also tested positive for the coronavirus.
Trump choreographed his departure from the hospital, which coincided with network evening news bulletins, emerging from the front door and clenching his fist. His flight home turned into a personal victory lap against a virus that is still in his system, showing how he intends to try to pivot the events of the last few days into a political winner.
Back at the White House in imagery replete with authoritarian overtones, Trump climbed the staircase at the South Portico, which was decorated with American flags, removed his mask, adjusted his suit, lifted his chin and saluted the departing helicopter in a reckless photo op that was one of the most bizarre moments in modern presidential history.
Then, still bare-faced, Trump, in scenes that would not have been out of place in totalitarian North Korea, walked into the presidential residence, contaminating the air inside. He then reemerged with a film crew to make the campaign video, in which he gave deeply misleading and potentially damaging advice to the American people about how to handle the worsening pandemic.
"Now I'm better and maybe I'm immune? I don't know. But don't let it dominate your lives. Get out there, be careful," the President said.
His behavior alarmed public health experts.
"It is inexplainable that the President of the United States, who is actively shedding virus in millions of particles, would walk into that building with an enormous number of staff, unmasked," said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor at George Washington University School of Medicine.
"It is really hard to understand how no one told him not to do that. There doesn't seem to be anyone in charge of his care other than the President of the United States, other than the patient," Reiner told CNN's Erin Burnett.
'Some really great drugs'
Trump earlier announced his pending departure from the hospital in a tweet in which he said he felt better than he did 20 years ago and showed no sign that his brush with a serious disease had caused him to rethink his previous messaging about the virus.
None of the seven million Americans who have tested positive for Covid benefited from the 24-hour treatment and several experimental therapies that were given to Trump in a dedicated suite tended by the military's best doctors.
Trump's comments will come as a cruel blow to relatives of Americans who have died from the disease and the many who have recovered and are now so-called "long-haulers" suffering serious after effects. It shows the same kind of denial and negligence that the President has displayed all along about a national crisis that he downplayed and mismanaged and relegated behind his own personal political needs.
Trump defies advisers by leaving hospital
The President left the hospital despite his advisers telling him that it would be better if he stayed, given the uncertainties of the disease.
"You don't wanna come back," is the message that's been relayed to the President, one source told CNN. If Trump got worse after returning to the White House, this source said: "That would be bad."
But the President, who has been itching to come home for several days, has a pressing political interest in proving that he is better 28 days from an election in which he is trailing Joe Biden. His campaign said Monday that he fully planned to debate the Democratic nominee in their second head-to-head clash -- a town hall event with members of the public in Miami next week. Trump's press aides are busily boosting his personality cult of a conquering strongman who beat the virus in order to show Americans there is nothing to be afraid of.
Biden wished Trump and first lady Melania Trump well in their convalescence during a campaign trip to Florida. But he also appealed to the President to take the virus more seriously.
Source: CNN
BDST: 1330 HRS, OCT 06, 2020
AP
