Confusion Concerning Trump’s health

Donald Trump’s doctors and his chief of staff are in serious disagreement with each other. Shortly after Trump’s personal physician Sean Conley informed the press about the president’s health, journalists complained that they had received contradictory information. While Conley asserted that the president was doing well and that he was being treated with Remdesivir, an anonymous White House source reported that Trump’s health had been in a „very worrying“ state in the past 24 hours. Conley stated that the president had not received any additional oxygen on Friday and Saturday. This led some observers to speculate whether the patient may have received oxygen previously at the White House.

Trump’s doctor had caused further speculation in the morning when he spoke about the past days. Conley had said the President had been diagnosed 72 hours earlier and had been given an antibody cocktail 48 hours earlier. It had previously been assumed that Trump already knew about his infection when he attended a donor meeting at his golf club in New Jersey on Thursday. In addition to the larger event, where Trump had kept his distance from the guests, there had also been smaller meetings in other rooms – some of them for photos with the president, as reported by the TV station ABC. The magazine „Politico“ reported that White House staff were concerned about their health and the welfare of their families.

Trump himself tried to allay all concerns by again breaking his unaccustomed silence on Twitter and writing that he felt good, that the doctors and nurses at Walter Reed Hospital were fantastic and that they had made „incredible progress“ in the fight against the virus in the last six months.

One month before the election, no one knows when Trump can leave the hospital or will have made a full recovery. It is a crisis of historic proportions, a crisis that is being exacerbated by the fact that more and more staff and politicians are testing positive. Many were at the event a week ago where Trump presented his Supreme Court candidate, Amy Coney Barrett. First Lady Melania Trump is also infected, as are advisor Hope Hicks, campaign manager Bill Stepien and the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel.

The crisis is also affecting the work in Congress. Besides Senators Mike Lee from Utah and Thom Tillis from North Carolina, who were present in the Rose Garden, Ron Johnson, Senator from Wisconsin, now also has the virus.

The Democrats reiterated their call for the hearings for the appeal of Judge Barrett to be postponed. Majority leader Mitch McConnell cancelled all Senate votes for the next two weeks. Barrett’s hearings would nevertheless begin on schedule on October 12, the Kentucky senator assured.