PIERS MORGAN: Covid-infected Trump's outrageous joyride stunt proves he's learned nothing about coronavirus and is shamefully prepared to risk Secret Service agents' lives to save his electoral skin by trying to look like a tough guy
For a few brief seconds yesterday, President Trump suggested he was finally taking coronavirus seriously.
After eight months of denial, delusion, distraction and frankly diabolical leadership during this pandemic, it seemed that catching the killer disease himself had dragged the leader of the free world to a stark moment of shuddering self-realisation.
'It's been a very interesting journey,' he said in a video message. 'I learned a lot about Covid. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn't the 'let's read the books' school,' And I get it, and I understand it, and it's a very interesting thing, and I'm going to be letting you know about it.'
Yes, it was outrageously, inexcusably late for the President to be waking up and smelling the corona coffee given that over 200,000 people in America have already died.
But better late than never.
And with the virus still raging furiously across the United States, Trump's conversion to covid-believer couldn't have come at a more crucial time, assuming he meant it.
Last night Trump broke covid quarantine rules to leave his hospital suite, still infected with the virus, still on many coronavirus-battling drugs, to go for a drive so he could wave at his fans outside
The White House released a photo of Trump last night taking part in a phone call with his Chief of Staff, Vice President Mike Pence and the Joint Chiefs from his conference room at Walter Reed
His 'I get it' speech came after reports he feared he would die from covid like one of his closest New York real estate tycoon friends had done in April.
Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman tweeted that before being taken to Walter Reed Hospital, Trump kept asking aides, 'Am I going out like Stan Chera? Am I?'
His fears were based on very real concerns by his medical team after he developed a high fever, cough and fatigue, and his oxygen levels dropped significantly.
Trump, aged 74 and obese, must have been very scared.
I know I would be in that situation.
So when his condition improved enough for him to tell the world 'I get it', I felt genuinely pleased that a) he was OK and b) his personal ordeal had at last made him confront the cold, hard truth about the lethally dangerous virus and its ability to infect and incapacitate even the most heavily protected man on Earth.
Or at least, I thought it had.
But I was wrong.
Last night Trump broke covid quarantine rules to leave his hospital suite, still infected with the virus, still on many coronavirus-battling drugs, to go for a drive so he could wave at his fans outside.
When I woke up in the UK to this news, I audibly groaned and uttered a profanity.
'What the F*CK was he thinking?' I muttered.
The answer is sadly obvious: he was thinking, once again, only of himself.
Trump knows he's in desperate trouble with his election campaign.
Trump surprised supporters last night with a brief visit, waving from the SUV as it drove past
![One supporter waved a 'we [heart] Trump' sign](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/10/05/11/33979190-8806145-One_supporter_waved_a_we_heart_Trump_sign-a-15_1601895582576.jpg)
One supporter waved a 'we [heart] Trump' sign
With just 30 days to go, he's way behind his Democrat opponent Joe Biden in the polls, and the gap has widened sharply after the chaotic first presidential debate last week in which Trump behaved like an obnoxious overgrown school bully.
So, for him to now be hospitalised with the virus he's spent most of the year playing down is Trump's absolute worst nightmare.
He knows it means the only thing anyone will now be talking about in the remaining four weeks of this election campaign is coronavirus and his dreadful handling of it.
Ironically, in his last speech before testing positive, Trump boasted the pandemic was coming to an end.
'I just want to say,' he told guests by video-link at the annual Al Smith Dinner on Thursday, 'that the end of the pandemic is in sight, and next year will be one of the greatest years in the history of our country.'
It's hard to imagine a more damaging blow to these two assertions than the President testing positive for the virus just hours later.
Especially as he was swiftly joined on the infection list by scores of his high-powered aides and political friends who attended the Rose Garden event he hosted last Sunday for his Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, where 150 people mingled, hugged and shook hands — most without masks.
Among guests who have since tested positive are former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, White House counselors Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, the president of the University of Notre Dame and at least two Republican lawmakers — Utah Sen. Mike Lee and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.
Their collective disregard for even basic coronavirus social distancing and safety rules perfectly epitomised the Trump administration's casual refusal to take this virus seriously enough.
And it destroys the President's claim that the pandemic's nearly over.
It's self-evidently not, and the virus has now ripped through the heart of a corona-doubting government in a way that the majority of Americans believe was entirely self-deserved.
Trump's so desperate to get out of hospital and show the world he's a big, strong tough guy who's beaten covid. Hence the tub-thumping video messages, macho photos of him supposedly working (he was writing on a piece of blank paper!) and disingenuous 'he's doing great!' statements by his personal physician Dr Sean Conley
The White House released an image of Trump working in the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Saturday
A new YouGov poll reveals 59% of registered voters believe the president has 'underestimated the risks of COVID-19' and just 21% say he has 'behaved appropriately' with regard to masks and social distancing.
For all Trump's bluster to the contrary, it's clear most voters now blame him for the scale of the devastating loss of life and smashed-up economy caused by coronavirus.
And if he can't urgently change that narrative, potential electoral wipe-out lies.
That's why he's so desperate to get out of hospital and show the world he's a big, strong tough guy who's beaten covid.
Hence the tub-thumping video messages, macho photos of him supposedly working (he was writing on a piece of blank paper!) and disingenuous 'he's doing great!' statements by his personal physician Dr Sean Conley who claimed absurdly that he only said that to make sure Trump's condition didn't deteriorate, and then lied about whether the President had needed oxygen.
Now, we have the ludicrous joyride which put the lives at risk of the two other people in the car, both presumed to be Secret Service agents.
It was such an appalling spectacle that it moved prominent local medical bosses to condemn it publicly.
Dr James Phillips, a Walter Reed doctor, was angered by Trump's Sunday drive-by to wave at his supporters
'Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential 'drive-by' just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,' tweeted Dr James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University's Emergency Medicine division, and a COVID-19 consultant. 'They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.'
Phillips added: 'That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 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.'
Dr James Phillips, a Walter Reed doctor, reacted with anger to the president's jaunt on Sunday night
Dr Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, was equally unimpressed
Dr Craig Spencer, an ER doctor in New York and director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia, was shocked
He was joined in his condemnation by other George Washington colleagues, including Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery, who raged: 'By taking a joy ride outside Walter Reed the president is placing his Secret Service detail at grave risk. In the hospital when we go into close contact with a COVID patient we dress in full PPE: Gown, gloves, N95, eye protection, hat. This is the height of irresponsibility.'
Dr Craig Spencer, an ER doctor who survived Ebola and is currently director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University, was also appalled:
'Moments after stating 'I learned a lot about COVID', the President takes a joyride in an enclosed space with presumably #COVID19 negative people,' he said, 'all while on experimental medications.'
What makes this even worse is that on the day Trump was dramatically flown to the hospital on Marine One, the US recorded another 44,000 cases of Covid-19 and 880 deaths. None of those new patients will get anything like the dedicated round-the-clock medical care available to the President amid a national emergency in which many have died alone, and patients are isolated from loved ones in crowded hospitals.
Imagine how they and their families must feel when they see their president continue to behave to recklessly?
President Trump's actions weren't just shocking and dangerous, they also directly contravened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines which state that Covid patients should stay at home except to get medical care. 'In general,' the CDC website says, 'transport and movement of a patient with suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection outside of their room should be limited to medically essential purposes.'
Obviously, there was no 'medically essential purpose' to Trump's joyride.
It was just a shameless and shameful PR move to show everyone he's 'winning' against the virus.
But he doesn't know that yet.
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson caught coronavirus in March and was hospitalised nine days after his diagnosis, nearly dying on an ICU ward.
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson caught coronavirus in March and was hospitalised nine days after his diagnosis, nearly dying on an ICU ward
Trump's not out of the woods yet by any means, yet he wants us to think he is and is prepared to risk lives of those charged with protecting him to prove it.
It's hard to imagine a more selfish, narcissistic act of shocking negligence.
Yet it's not the first time; Trump has repeatedly put his protection detail at unnecessary risk of covid infection throughout this crisis.
Secret Service agents know when they sign up for the job that they may have to take bullets for the President.
But they didn't sign up for the President to be the one firing the bullets at them.
'He's not even pretending to care now,' one outraged agent told the Washington Post after the joyride.
I wish President Trump a full recovery – and shame on all those vile hypocritical liberals who've been wishing him dead on social media.
But his actions last night proved he's actually learned absolutely nothing about coronavirus.
He doesn't 'get it' and never has.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMigQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5kYWlseW1haWwuY28udWsvbmV3cy9hcnRpY2xlLTg4MDYxNDUvUElFUlMtTU9SR0FOLVRydW1wcy1vdXRyYWdlb3VzLWpveXJpZGUtc3R1bnQtcHJvdmVzLWhlcy1sZWFybmVkLWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLmh0bWzSAYUBaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGFpbHltYWlsLmNvLnVrL25ld3MvYXJ0aWNsZS04ODA2MTQ1L2FtcC9QSUVSUy1NT1JHQU4tVHJ1bXBzLW91dHJhZ2VvdXMtam95cmlkZS1zdHVudC1wcm92ZXMtaGVzLWxlYXJuZWQtY29yb25hdmlydXMuaHRtbA?oc=5
2020-10-05 11:30:16Z
52781097425547
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar