The Trump Presidency

[Bryanpoprobson]

Secret Service agents are supposed to take a bullet for the President, not one from him.

[Bryanpoprobson]

https://twitter.com/nazirafzal/status/1313189422968565761?s=21

Wow he really is totally insane.

[JayUtah]

There is growing skepticism that he actually had the disease.

The Congressman representing my district was one of the first government leaders to have the disease, back in February or March.  He's young and fit, with no comorbidities.  Two months later he gave interviews saying he still could not shake the cough and fatigue.  He was in the hospital for well over a week and lost something like 15 pounds.

But yes, sending the message that COVID-19 really is nothing to fear is just about the worst thing a President could say right now.

[Britmax]

There is growing skepticism that he actually had the disease.

The Congressman representing my district was one of the first government leaders to have the disease, back in February or March.  He's young and fit, with no comorbidities.  Two months later he gave interviews saying he still could not shake the cough and fatigue.  He was in the hospital for well over a week and lost something like 15 pounds.

But yes, sending the message that COVID-19 really is nothing to fear is just about the worst thing a President could say right now.

You Americans, eh?  You'd never get a British leader pulling a stunt like that.

Oh. Hold on. tho'....?

[LunarOrbit]

So either Donald Trump hasn't really got COVID-19 and is just pretending so that he can say "See? It's not so bad! And if you do get sick you can just buy these miracle drugs that totally worked for me (and I promise I'm not receiving kickbacks from the companies that make them )", or he is incredibly stupid and reckless. I think it's the latter.

If he has it I expect him to be back in the hospital and on a ventilator by this time next week, and dead before election day. He'll probably bring half the White House staff with him.

[JayUtah]

The balance of fact still clearly favors that he really did have the disease and that his recovery -- if genuine -- is mostly likely attributable to treatments that aren't available to anyone else.  You can expect the President to continue to receive the best of care from armies of physicians and using that to downplay the seriousness of the epidemic.  But I do expect to see vast numbers of White House staffers, with lesser levels of care available to them, test positive and have a far rougher time of it.

I am fairly amused that the Trump campaign is taking the stance that Donald Trump is now somehow better off or wiser than Joe Biden because he has endured the disease and Biden has not.  That's like telling me the guy who's missing three fingers is an expert on power tools.

[molesworth]

His statement on coming out of hospital is unbelievably irresponsible :

Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!!

The covidiots will take this as approval to carry on in the same way they have so far, and getting things under control will just get harder.

From what I've read and heard about the progress of this disease, the severity of any given case isn't really known until about the 9th day after infection, and it progresses in "waves", with patients alternating between being relatively OK and quite badly compromised.  Given that Trump has already had two episodes of low blood oxygen, and only four(?) days into it, I really don't think it's wise to be returning to the White House.  I'm sure they have good medical facilities, but not at the same level as they would in hospital.

[grmcdorman]

I suspect it's Trump pushing for this, and as usual he doesn't pay any attention to experts.

[JayUtah]

I suspect it's Trump pushing for this, and as usual he doesn't pay any attention to experts.

This may be why the doctors are being so coy.  They presumably still want to practice medicine after Donald Trump is gone, so they have to retain some medical credibility.  But Dr. Conley is, for lack of a better word, a Trump appointee.  It is reasonable to expect him to display some loyalty to the President and not contradict the President's likely private wishes in public.

Another point is that the medications listed for the President's treatment have side affects that include an impairment of cognitive function, euphoria, and so forth.  That raises the question of whether there should have been a 25th Amendment declaration prior to the President's receiving these drugs.  Not as if anyone temporarily promoted to outrank Trump would have any success.  But that's part of what the Amendment is there fore.

[grmcdorman]

Another point is that the medications listed for the President's treatment have side affects that include an impairment of cognitive function...

Not that there was much cognitive function on display there to begin with in the Very Stable Genius.

Edit to add: On the other hand, there's a long tradition of being coy or otherwise ... creative ... with the truth in regards to Presidential medical issues.

[JayUtah]

Not that there was much cognitive function on display there to begin with in the Very Stable Genius.

I wonder if that would qualify the meds as placebos, then. 

He's back at the White House, doing a balcony appearance and gasping like a fish out of water.  My guess is that he ordered his doctors to pump him full of whatever would keep him vertical just so he could boast his strength at beating the disease.  Didn't PM Boris Johnson have a period of reasonably good health a few days after initial treatment, and then relapse so hard he had to be placed in intensive care?

Edit to add: On the other hand, there's a long tradition of being coy or otherwise ... creative ... with the truth in regards to Presidential medical issues.

For sure.  Notable examples include President F.D. Roosevelt's polio and President Reagan's early-stage dementia.  I think the public feels differently when it's a preventable, communicable disease that he publicly mocked.

[jfb]

Really feeling this energy...



”Look, am healthy!  Vital like bull!"

[Zakalwe]

Not that there was much cognitive function on display there to begin with in the Very Stable Genius.

I wonder if that would qualify the meds as placebos, then. 

He's back at the White House, doing a balcony appearance and gasping like a fish out of water.  My guess is that he ordered his doctors to pump him full of whatever would keep him vertical just so he could boast his strength at beating the disease.  Didn't PM Boris Johnson have a period of reasonably good health a few days after initial treatment, and then relapse so hard he had to be placed in intensive care?

Pumping him full of a strong steroid such as dexamethasone would do that. Looking at the side-effects though makes me hope that the guy carrying the nuke football stays well away from Trump.

Yes to the comment about Johnson. The press was full of "he's doing fine" until he crashed and was placed into ICU. On day 8 of his infection he posted a video saying that he had a temperature and was in isolation. Two days later he was in critical care and being given oxygen although he was never on a ventilator or CPAP machine. It has been reported that he was borderline for being mechanically ventilated.

[Allan F]

There is growing skepticism that he actually had the disease.

The Congressman representing my district was one of the first government leaders to have the disease, back in February or March.  He's young and fit, with no comorbidities.  Two months later he gave interviews saying he still could not shake the cough and fatigue.  He was in the hospital for well over a week and lost something like 15 pounds.

But yes, sending the message that COVID-19 really is nothing to fear is just about the worst thing a President could say right now.

You Americans, eh?  You'd never get a British leader pulling a stunt like that.

Oh. Hold on. tho'....?

It's strange, how that infection varies in effect. I know a girl (bikini-fitness-athlete) who hangs on the back of a dump truck, collecting household garbage, who was tested positive for antibodies in june. Only time she had been sick, was end of feburary, before the nation-wide lockdown. Her symptoms were very mild, over in a couple of days.

She was tested positive, because she woke up, paralysed in one side of her face. That was from borrelia. Took about a month of antibiotics to get back to normal.

edit: spelling

[Jason Thompson]

Well, this played out pretty much exactly as I expected it to. I hate being right sometimes.

So Trump now thinks the COVID-19 tests are maybe not reliable because someone tested negative repeatedly then their latest test was positive. Clearly there can be no other explanation for this....

I don't wish this illness on anyone, but I find myself fervently wishing that Trump does not get it, because if he gets it and recovers can you imagine what his deuded sense of self-importance would make of that?!

His whole attitude of how 'he' beat the disease is typical Trump, utterly unable to conceive of the fact that he beat it because he had help from medical experts and medication devised by scientists and doctors. Now he's advising people not to let it dominate them when over 200,000 Americans are dead because of COVID. People on his team are criticising Biden for not getting it, as if Trump is now an expert because he's actually had it. I even saw someone tweeting how suspect it was that Trump and his team are getting it and Biden and his cronies are not, even though the reason for that difference is abundantly clear to anyone with half a functioning brain.

I hope America recovers from COVID and Trump, I really do.