PRESIDENT Donald Trump tweeted on Monday, October 5: ”I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good!”
Trump sent this tweet to his followers shortly before making a dramatic exit through the front doors of the hospital, pumping his fist to cameras, NBC News reported.
He said, “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!”
This tweet from the president created more questions than answers regarding the true condition of Trump’s health on social media.
Did he really test positive with the virus or was it another diversionary tactic after trailing behind Joe Biden in the polls by 13 points as a result of their chaotic and antagonistic first presidential debate?
Was it his desperate way to elicit sympathy, even from his opponent Joe Biden who pulled out all negative ads out of respect for the president, and win sympathy votes?
Was it his way to seal the loyalty of his followers who now demand empathy and sympathy from critics even when they themselves cheered on Trump when he would, in all cruelty, mock and berate people with illnesses and disabilities?
Was it a diversionary tactic to move national discourse away from the bombshell reporting by the New York Times about Trump’s much-concealed tax returns, showing that Trump “had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.”
“As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million,” the report continued.
Many wonder how he could have been discharged from the Walter Reed Medical Center and try to claim victory over the coronavirus on Monday, as he returned to the White House, when he only announced that he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive three days before?
Many question why during his briefing on Sunday, October 4, the Physician to the President Dr. Sean Conley, “acknowledged that he had provided a rosy version of events to please his notoriously sensitive patient,” the New York Times reported.
“I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction, and in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true,” Conley said.
This sounded like a “double speak” creating ambiguity more than clarity. Could this imply that the president could not accept any report that would go against his image of himself as “invincible“?
The Times reported that Alyssa Farah, a White House communications adviser, “conceded that Dr. Conley had been speaking to an audience of one during his Saturday briefing.”
“When you’re treating a patient, you want to project confidence, you want to lift their spirits, and that was the intent,” she said. She said that Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was trying “to be as transparent as we can” be by amending the report later.
Again, intentional double speak because the president isn’t mature enough to face the truth.
National Public Radio (NPR) reported that Trump gets steroid medication dexamethasone, which according to the World Health Organization and NIH guidelines, is given only to patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms, supplemental oxygen, and two other experimental drugs, Regeneron monoclonal antibody cocktail, and Remdesivir.
After being infected with the virus, Trump said from a video recorded Sunday, October 4, from his hospital suite: “I learned a lot about Covid. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. I get it. I understand it.”
Trump’s actions, however, betray his words.
If he indeed got it, why would he endanger the life of his Secret Service agents when he made a trip outside the hospital in his SUV to wave at his adoring fans?
Current and former Secret Service agents and medical professionals were aghast Sunday night at President Trump’s publicity stunt.
Where was his empathy? Where was his compassion for these agents who have families to be bereaved if they die from the virus?
As CNN’s Dana Bash eloquently articulated, the Secret Service would take a bullet FOR the president to save his life. But their job description does not include making them “take a bullet” FROM the president just so he would project invincibility, strength and victory and over the virus.
Where was his wisdom when his judgment call shows he did not have the intellectual nor emotional maturity to understand the facts and science about the virus, the effects of it — both short term and long term — on patients? He proclaimed: “I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” Really?
Where were his wisdom and empathy when he and his cohorts in the Republican Party and his administration chose to conceal who among his staff have contracted the virus despite being asymptomatic? Was he acting based on science or his delusion that he knows more than scientists and health officials?
Did Trump not know how important it is to determine who were exposed to a person with COVID-19 in order to quarantine them until a negative result comes out? Did he not understand that one can be asymptomatic yet be a carrier of the virus? Did he not get it that this was the reason why people were told by scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci over and over again to wear masks to mitigate the spread of the virus?
Did he not get it that patients with a positive result should be isolated so he would not spread the virus and infect other people? Why did he not isolate himself when he went back to the White House?
No, Trump did NOT get it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done that SUV publicity tactic. He wouldn’t rush back to the White House, remove his mask, and interact in a short distance with his staff.
Does Trump really care for these people’s safety and life? OR, does Trump see and use people as his “props” in this new episode of his reality show?
Did he not learn the lesson that concealing and downplaying facts about the virus would lead to more death, even after he got infected himself? After so many members and officials of the Republican Party also got the virus because of his blatant lies and misinformation script and direction?
Was projecting his false sense of strength, invincibility and victory more important to him than protecting and saving peoples’ lives?
Was the threat of being determined to be “incapacitated to fulfill his duties as president” and therefore be replaced by Vice President Mike Pence or by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the Constitution provision on the rules of succession, more compelling and matter more to him than the lives of more than almost 210,000 Americans who have already died because of COVID-19?
Did he really get the science and facts of coronavirus? Then why double down on downplaying it when he was about to leave the hospital, instead of using this moment to educate his fans and the American people about the fatality of the disease to save their lives?
Hasn’t Trump internalized yet that such was part of his oath when he was sworn to as president? Has he not learned the lesson that honesty and trustworthiness are important in governing?
Has he not learned that true patriotism and love for the country is serving ALL of the American people, to protect and save their lives, to govern for the greater good and not for his own political and personal interest?
“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.” Were the lives of the American people who died of Covid insignificant to him because his goal is to be re-elected, no matter what the cost?
Clearly, Donald Trump is incapable of learning the lessons of empathy and sympathy, science and facts, the true role, and the obligation of the title “President of the United States.” He is incorrigible, a hopeless, helpless case as he has proven in the last four years because he does not have the character, the heart and soul required of the leadership position. He is beneath the dignity of the Office of the President of the United States.
He is definitely the WRONG MAN for the job. But like what he has done to other contestants in his reality TV show, we can fire him.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has proven he has the temperament, judgment, character, vision and experience to be the leader to unite us instead of divide us, to serve us instead of using the Office of the President to serve his selfish intentions, to heal and rebuild America from the rubbles and destruction Trump has caused in the past four years, to help us all fulfill the promise of America and save the soul of our beloved nation.
If you are looking for an alternative to what we have experienced as Americans for nearly four years, you can make the choice to vote Trump out of office this November.
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
