Admitting any kind of weakness, even medical illness, goes against every authoritarian strongman impulse Trump has demonstrated his entire life. Nor is it even remotely in Trump’s interest to get stuck in quarantine for two weeks only a month before the election, hurting his fundraising efforts and forcing cancellation of numerous rallies and campaign events. However, the COVID-19 diagnosis was confirmed by official White House physician Sean Conley, who is an active duty US Navy doctor, and it is beyond Trump’s ability to ensnare military and civilian public servants from the Department of Defense and Secret Service into such an elaborate ruse, no matter how much he might want to do so, and they would never knowingly collude in putting the national security at risk. I readily concede there is no bottom to Trump’s willingness to lie, and The Washington Post maintains a database of his substantive lies now well over 20,000, but his lying is so well known that less than 30% of the public believes anything he says.
Several personal friends of mine have openly said that Trump’s behavior is reminiscent of “gaslighting” behavior they encountered in abusive relationships, and that is undeniably true. I have observed two themes on social media that I want to address specifically.įirstly, there has been speculation that Trump is faking his diagnosis for any number of reasons, such as encouraging sympathy, getting out of future debates, or even providing an excuse for losing reelection.
This was so early in the pandemic that the World Health Organization would not even name the virus, SARS-CoV-2, and the disease caused by it, COVID-19, until February 11. I was appalled, and said so, when US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross idiotically predicted on Fox Business, as early as January 30, that the novel virus affecting China would be economically good for the United States because it would lead to the return of manufacturing jobs from overseas. Much of this began as conflicting information either because uninformed people had no idea what they were talking about or was simply the process of science figuring things out in the face of an onrushing tidal wave of unfiltered data. I’ve been covering the coronavirus story since January, reading everything from government statements to medical journals. (A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the flights but said they were routine.) Shortly before Trump’s tweet, public sources revealed the launch of two of the special “doomsday” E6 Mercury “Looking Glass” military aircraft used to maintain control of the US nuclear arsenal in the event of an attack that disables the National Command Authority (that is, the president, vice president, and defense secretary) usually handling that duty this would be standard practice to deter enemies seeking to take advantage of the situation. There is no case in which any threat of medical incapacity of a sitting president is a good thing: At best it leads to chaos and at worst is an invitation to enemies for a military or terrorist attack.
As you get older, your risk of being hospitalized for COVID-19 increases.Įarly this morning, Trump announced on Twitter that he and first lady Melania had tested positive for COVID-19. He claimed on September 21 that COVID-19 “affects virtually nobody” as the US death toll surpassed 200,000. He made false statements claiming in February the virus would go away like a “miracle” by April while privately admitting that was untrue.
Trump minimized federal assistance to states and local governments facing shortages of medical supplies such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and mechanical ventilators, even using federal agents to seize shipments and divert them away from medical facilities. He opposed increased COVID-19 testing, which could have substantially limited shutdowns and layoffs, because it “makes us look bad” and said he wanted to “slow the testing down, please,” bizarrely reasoning “when you test, you create cases.” On April 23, he speculated about injecting disinfectant such as bleach into the body as a treatment for COVID-19, prompting the maker of Lysol to issue a statement saying “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).” On April 3, he criticized the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for recommending wearing masks. Donald Trump, in his capacity as president, has spent now 10 months ignoring expert public health advice, opposing basic safety measures such as wearing protective face coverings and opposing curtailing risky commercial operations such as dine-in restaurants and bars.
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