Just how sick was Trump?
A new book says the former President was hit harder by COVID-19 than we'd been told.
Yeah, I know
Speaking of mental health, we all know the last President was a very sick man. But that may have applied to his physical condition, too.
The Washington Post recently featured an excerpt from Nightmare Scenario, an upcoming book about the Trump administration’s shambolic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I know it’s hard to believe the Trump White House might have fudged the truth at times, but when he was infected with the novel coronavirus, the one-termer might have been much more ill that we’d been led to believe:
Almost 48 hours [after the first Presidential debate], Trump became terribly ill. Hours after his tweet announcing he and first lady Melania Trump had coronavirus infections, the president began a rapid spiral downward. His fever spiked, and his blood oxygen level fell below 94 percent, at one point dipping into the 80s. Sean Conley, the White House physician, attended the president at his bedside. Trump was given oxygen in an effort to stabilize him.
The doctors gave Trump an eight-gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. That experimental treatment was what had required the FDA’s sign-off. He was also given a first dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, also by IV. That drug was authorized for use but still hard to get for many patients because it was in short supply.
Typically, doctors space out treatments to measure a patient’s response. Some drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, are most effective if they’re administered early in the course of an infection. Others, such as remdesivir, are most effective when they’re given later, after a patient has become critically ill. But Trump’s doctors threw everything they could at the virus all at once. His condition appeared to stabilize somewhat as the day wore on, but his doctors, still fearing he might need to goon a ventilator, decided to move him to the hospital. It was too risky at that point to stay at the White House.
Many White House officials and even his closest aides were kept in the dark about his condition. But after they woke up to the news — many of them were asleep when Trump tweeted at nearly 1 a.m. on Friday that he had the virus —Cabinet officials and aides lined up at the White House to get tested. A large number had met with him the previous week to brief him about various issues or had traveled with him to the debate.
It was unclear even to Trump’s closest aides just how sick he was. Was he mildly ill, as he and Conley were saying, or was he sicker than they all knew? Trump was supposed to join a call with nursing home representatives later that day as part of his official calendar. Officials had been scheduled to do it in person from the White House, but that morning they were informed the call would be done remotely. Trump’s aides insisted that he would still be on it.
As one aide waited in line for a coronavirus test, she saw Conley sprint out of his office with a panicked look. That’s strange, the aide thought. An hour or two later, officials were informed that Pence would be joining the nursing homes call. Trump couldn’t make it.
Trump’s condition worsened early Saturday. His blood oxygen level dropped to 93 percent, and he was given the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which is usually administered if someone is extremely ill (the normal blood oxygen level is between 95 and 100 percent). The drug was believed to improve survival in coronavirus patients receiving supplemental oxygen. The president was on a dizzying array of emergency medicines by now — all at once.
Usually, the Face-Eating Leopards Party supporter re-evaluates his beliefs once the leopards get around to eating his face. But because 2020 was 2020 and Trump was Trump, getting infected with COVID-19 may have made him even more reckless:
Trump’s medical advisers hoped his bout with the coronavirus, which was far more serious than acknowledged at the time, would inspire him to take the virus seriously. Perhaps now, they thought, he would encourage Americans to wear masks and put his health and medical officials front and center in the response. Instead, Trump emerged from the experience triumphant and ever more defiant. He urged people not to be afraid of the virus or let it dominate their lives, disregarding that he had had access to health care and treatments unavailable to other Americans.
[…]
[CDC Director Robert] Redfield spent the weekend Trump was sick praying. He prayed the president would recover. He prayed that he would emerge from the experience with a newfound appreciation for the seriousness of the threat. And he prayed that Trump would tell Americans they should listen to public health advisers before it was too late. The virus had begun a violent resurgence. Redfield, Fauci, Birx and others felt they had limited time to persuade people to behave differently if they were going to avoid a massive wave of death.
There were few signs that weekend that Trump would have a change of heart. It had already been a battle to get him to agree to go to Walter Reed in the first place. Now, he was badgering Conley and others to let him go home early. Redfield heard Trump was insisting on being discharged and called Conley on the phone. The president can’t go home this early, Redfield advised the doctor. He was a high-risk patient, and there were no guarantees that he wouldn’t backslide or experience some complication. (Many covid-19 patients seemed to be on an upswing and then quickly deteriorated.) Trump needed to stay in the hospital until that risk had passed. Conley agreed but said the president had made up his mind and couldn’t be convinced otherwise.
If they couldn’t keep him in the hospital, the advisers hoped that Trump would at least emerge from Walter Reed a changed man. Some even began mentally preparing to finally speak their minds. It would surely be the inflection point, they all thought. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to serve as a wake-up call. It was, at the end of the day, a national security failure. The president had not been protected. If this fiasco wasn’t the turning point, what would be?
Just as the country had been watching a few days before, many people tuned in again as Trump took Marine One back to the White House’s South Lawn on Monday night. They saw him step out in a navy suit, white shirt and blue-striped tie, with a medical mask on his face. He walked along the grass before climbing the steps to a balcony.
But Trump didn’t go inside. It was a moment of political theater too good to pass up — as suffused with triumph as his trip Friday had been humbling. He turned from the center of the balcony and looked back toward Marine One and the television cameras. It was clear that he was breathing heavily from the long walk and the climb up the flight of stairs.
Redfield was watching on television from home. He was praying as Trump went up the steps. Praying that he would reach the balcony and show some humility. That he would remind people that anyone could be susceptible to the coronavirus — even the president, the first lady and their son. That he would tell them how they could protect themselves and their loved ones.
But Trump didn’t waver. Facing the cameras from the balcony, he used his right hand to unhook the mask loop from his right ear, then raised his left hand to pull the mask off his face. He was heavily made up, his face more orange tinted than in the photos from the hospital. The helicopter’s rotors were still spinning. He put the mask into his right pocket, as if he was discarding it once and for all, then raised both hands in a thumbs-up. He was still probably contagious, standing there for all the world to see. He made a military salute as the helicopter departed the South Lawn, and then strode into the White House, passing staffers on his way and failing to protect them from the virus particles emitted from his nose and mouth.
Right then, Redfield knew it was over. Trump showed in that moment that he hadn’t changed at all. The pandemic response wasn’t going to change, either.
Can’t change, won’t change. The Trump cult, meanwhile, keeps changing for the worse:
We don’t know who is responsible for burning down several Roman Catholic churches located in First Nations communities, but if it’s not connected to more horrific revelations about unmarked graves at former Church-run residential schools, that would be one incredible coincidence.
Unsurprisingly, many people whom I suspect aren’t normally in favor of attacking places of worship catering primarily to racial minorities are rather enthusiastic about this. But the Chief of one community affected isn’t celebrating the church being destroyed:
Lower Similkameen Indian Band Chief Keith Crow says he received a call at about 4 a.m. PT that the Chopaka church was on fire. By the time he arrived about 30 minutes later, it had burned to the ground.
"I'm angry," Crow said. "I don't see any positive coming from this and it's going to be tough."
Crow said he later received a call from the Upper Similkameen Indian Band, near Hedley, that a church on that reserve had burned down as well.
[…]
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, previously told CBC News there are "mixed emotions" about the Catholic Church among Penticton Indian Band members.
Phillip said some members of the community have "an intense hatred for the Catholic Church in regard to the residential school experience."
Crow said he is taking part in a caravan of leaders, Indian residential school survivors, families and elders that will journey from Penticton to Kamloops on Saturday.
Hundreds of people have planned to take part in the caravan, he said, showing the unity of the people throughout the region.
"I feel good today for doing this, but I'm upset with the church being burned down last night," he said.
The Roman Catholic Church - doing the bidding of our own government - did unimaginable damage to generations of Native people. At the very least it must formally apologize, open its records so we can find out what happened on its watch, and accept the consequences.
Of course, I am neither a First Nations person nor a Roman Catholic, so that’s easy for me to say. Meanwhile, some First Nations people are devout Catholics who worshipped at these destroyed churches:
Anger at the Church is understandable, but for some it is tempered by many other conflicting emotions. These destroyed churches stood as reminders of the damage done by colonization - and the sites of many weddings and funerals.
We must concede to First Nations communities the right to decide how they will deal with the Church going forward. But that decision is not one for some person with a lighter and a gas can to make.
JVL kindly plugged this humble Substack in his “newsletter of newsletters” this past weekend, and in response I…um…find myself defending the honour of Doctor Sebastian Gorka. More, more accurately, his Mustang.
I seem to remember someone who is super-duper, double-manly, yet drives a 4-cylinder Mustang . . .
Yes, the base Mustang does indeed have a four-cylinder engine. A turbocharged one that makes 310 freaking horsepower.
That’s almost 100 horsepower more than the V8 in the 5.0 forever associated with some of our most beloved cultural icons. I love old cars as much as anyone (heck, #DavescarIDservice is part of the reason I went back to Twitter) but we really don’t appreciate how even humble family sedans and small crossovers of 2021 would absolutely destroy legendary performance cars that predate the George H.W. Bush administration.
So, I’m fine with Gorka’s four-cylinder Mustang, and I will instead divert my mockery toward a target that really deserves it: Gorka’s personalized license plate.