Donald Trump does surprise drive-by from hospital during COVID battle
Donald Trump’s personal assistant has reportedly tested positive to COVID-19. It comes as a motorcade drive-by “stunt” by the president triggered a wave of criticism.
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Donald Trump’s personal assistant has reportedly tested positive to COVID-19.
Nick Luna, dubbed Mr Trump’s ‘body man', has been by Mr Trump’s side both at the White House and during work trips.
Luna is married to Jared Kushner’s PA, Cassidy Dumbauld, raising fears more people in Mr Trump’s inner circle have contracted the virus.
It comes after a motorcade drive-by “stunt” by Mr Trump sparked an angry backlash from America’s medical community who took aim at his protocol-breaking visit to his supporters outside the hospital where he is being treated for the highly-infectious, potentially deadly new coronavirus.
He was masked as he waved from inside his bulletproof vehicle during the short trip outside Walter Reed military medical centre near Washington, which appeared designed to take back the narrative on his improving health after a weekend of muddled messaging from his doctors.
But experts complained that the outing broke his own government’s public health guidelines requiring patients to isolate while they are in treatment and still shedding virus -- and endangered his Secret Service protection.
An upbeat Mr Trump said he wanted to show his thanks to the supporters and his carers at hospital in a video message about his planned outing that was posted as it was taking place about 5.20pm local time in Bethesda, near Washington DC.
Mr Trump wore a mask and was loudly cheered as he waved from a car window.
“They’ve been out there for a long time,” he said of the crowds outside.
He also said he had “learned a lot about COVID” by “really going to school” as he has battled the virus.
But health experts took to the airwaves and social media to criticise him.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” said James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University.
“They might get sick. They may die. For political theatre. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theatre. This is insanity.
“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack.
“The risk of COVID-19 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.”
But the White House dismissed the risk and called it “a short, last-minute motorcade ride to wave to his supporters outside”.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said “appropriate” precautions had been taken to protect Trump and his support staff, including protective gear.
“The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do,” he added.
But Zeke Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and regular TV pundit, described the appearance as “shameful.” “Making his Secret Service agents drive with a COVID-19 patient, with windows up no less, put them needlessly at risk for infection. And for what? A PR stunt,” he tweeted.
It comes after it was revealed Mr Trump kept his first COVID diagnosis secret and told an aide who had tested positive “Don’t tell anyone”, according to the Wall St Journal.
The paper said Mr Trump sat on a positive result in a rapid-test on Thursday for several hours until he could be diagnosed by a more thorough screening, known as a PCR swab.
In the meantime he spoke to Fox News about his adviser, Hope Hicks, the first known Trump administration member to test positive in the growing cluster that has spread to more than 20 staffers, advisors and members of the White House press corps.
At the time, he said he and First Lady Melania Trump were waiting on results of tests they had taken because they both spent so much time with Hicks.
“I’ll get my test back either tonight or tomorrow morning,” Mr Trump said.
He tweeted about the pair’s diagnosis a few hours later.
But the Journal reported on Sunday, local time, that Mr Trump already knew he was sick and was trying to the keep it secret.
“Mr Trump and his top advisors also aimed to keep such a close hold on the early positive results that his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, didn’t know that Hope Hicks … had tested positive on Thursday morning until news reports later that evening,” the Journal said.
Mr Stepien himself tested positive the following day.
US PRESIDENT COULD BE OUT OF HOSPITAL SOON
Mr Trump’s medical team declared he could be released from hospital as soon as Monday US time, despite revealing he needed to be put on oxygen as his health deteriorated.
He is also being administered the powerful steroid dexamethasone – usually only given to patients with the most serious bouts of COVID-19.
But if Mr Trump continues to improve, the doctors said they “plan for discharge as early as tomorrow.”
“Today, he feels well. He’s up and around. … And if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is that we can plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow to the White House where he can continue his treatment course,” Dr Brian Garibaldi said.
Mr Trump received supplemental oxygen and is now being treated with a powerful steroid, dexamethasone, as his medical team indicated he may have suffered some lung damage.
The steroid is usually only used in very serious COVID cases.
Dr Sean Conley also cleared up previous confusion, confirming that Mr Trump experienced “two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation levels” on Friday, as well as having a high fever.
The president was on supplemental oxygen for roughly one hour.
Dr Conley explained the circumstances that led up to the President being given oxygen and then being hospitalised.
“Thursday night and Friday morning when I left his (White House) bedside, the President was doing well, with only minor symptoms and his oxygen saturation was in the high 90s.
“Late Friday morning when I returned to the bedside the President had a high fever and his oxygen saturation level was transiently dipping below 94 per cent. Given these developments I was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness.
“I recommended to the President that we try some supplemental oxygen to see how would respond. He was fairly adamant that he didn’t need it, he was not short of breath, he was tired, had the fever, and that was about it.
“But after about a minute, on only two litres, his saturation levels were back over 95 per cent.
He stayed on that for about an hour maybe, and it was off and gone.
“Later that day, by the time the team here was at the bedside, the President had been up, out of the bed, moving about the residence, with only mild symptoms.
“Despite this, everyone agreed that the best course of action was to move to Walter Reed for more thorough evaluation monitoring.”
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When asked why he had not revealed the President needed “supplemental oxygen” at an earlier media briefing, Dr Conley said he was trying to put a positive spin on the President’s condition.
“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team and the President have had over this course of illness. I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of the illness in another direction and in doing so it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.
“The fact of the matter is that he is doing very well.”
Meanwhile, Lara Trump is hosting a prayer for the president and First Lady Melania Trump.
Donald Trump’s campaign is holding a call to prayer for the president and First Lady this evening, hosted by Lara Trump. pic.twitter.com/QIY7W6N9NE
— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) October 4, 2020
WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT ‘MISCONSTRUED’
Mr Trump was reportedly angry about remarks made to the media about his health by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Mr Meadows provided an update to reporters on Saturday “off the record,” but was caught on camera.
“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,” Mr Meadows said.
Later that day he said that he and White House physician Dr Sean Conley were “real concerned” by the 74-year-old president’s condition on Friday morning.
“He’s made unbelievable progress from yesterday morning, when a number of us – the doctor and I – were very concerned,” he said.
“Yesterday morning we were real concerned. He had a fever and his blood oxygenation had dropped rapidly.”
The New York Times said the President released a video from hospital in response to the comments by Mr Meadows.
“I think his (Mr Meadows’) statement was misconstrued,” Dr Conley said.
“What he meant was that 24 hours ago, when he and I were checking on the president, that there was a momentary episode of his fever and temporary drop in the saturation which prompted us to act expediently to move him up here (to the hospital),” Dr Conley said.
“Fortunately, that was a transient limited episode.”
TRUMP SUPPORTERS CLOSE DOWN MANHATTAN’S FIFTH AVENUE
A caravan of more than 100 vehicles driven by out-of-town Trump supporters brought Fifth Ave to a halt early Sunday US time — the latest show of support for the coronavirus-stricken president.
The long line of cars, trucks and motorcycles had mostly driven into the city from Long Island — grinding traffic to halt for at least 30 minutes as they arrived to loudly cheer for the president outside his Trump Tower home.
They constantly blared horns and waved flags — with loud chants of “four more years!” in support of the commander in chief’s re-election bid.
The noise stopped for at least a moment as the group called for a moment of silence to send a prayer.
“This is a serious situation — the leader of the free world is sick. The leader of the free world needs our support,” an organiser said over a loudspeaker, asking those gathered to “send some good energy to President Trump.”
Trump supporters close 5th Ave. to support COVID-19-stricken president https://t.co/xQJvkfGdgc pic.twitter.com/ODyH9oxaRq
— New York Post Metro (@nypmetro) October 4, 2020
TRUMP ‘SOUNDED LIKE HIMSELF COMPLETELY’
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he’d had a 40-minute phone call with the hospitalised President.
“Well, on the phone, he sounded like himself completely. I was very happy to hear his voice sounding exactly the same as I’ve known him for 30 years.
“And then after we talked about his health, we started to talk about politics and he gave me a lot of notes to give to the campaign about what they should do and how they should do it.
“He even wrote out a kind of speech. I had to kind of get him off the phone so he would get back and rest.
“He did say that he’d love to get out as quickly as possible, he said he feels like he could go out now.
“He said he felt pretty bad the first day, but now he feels, for the last 24 hours, that was 3 o’clock yesterday, he felt perfectly fine, no fever, a little tired but not very tired, for him to be a little tired is nothing.
“The thing I think the President wants people to know is, we’ve got to face up to this illness. He could have chosen to go hide somewhere in the white house for five months, but he said, ‘I couldn’t do that, I had to cautiously go out there and lead the way back. If I didn’t lead, who was going to lead? If I stayed holed up there, the whole economy would stay holed up’.”
Originally published as Donald Trump does surprise drive-by from hospital during COVID battle