Outing shows just how little he ‘gets it’
MANY hoped that if there was one silver lining to Donald Trump’s Covid infection it was that his ordeal would finally impress on him the seriousness of the pandemic – and the need to prevent the spread of the virus.
Sadly, the President showed little sign that anything had changed when he suddenly left the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre on Sunday evening to wave at supporters.
It left medical experts and his own Secret Service bodyguards appalled by its stupidity, jeopardising not only his health but that of those accompanying him.
On Sunday afternoon he posted a short video on social media from the hospital’s lavish presidential suite, saying he had ‘a little surprise’ for some of the ‘great patriots’ waiting outside. ‘It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about Covid,’ he said. ‘I get it and I understand it.’
But as far as health experts are concerned, he revealed just how much he didn’t ‘get it’ minutes later when, at just after 5pm local time, he emerged from the hospital grounds in an armoured black Chevy Suburban SUV.
The dozen or so vehicles in the presidential cavalcade had arrived at a side entrance just as Mr Trump’s video was posted online.
The presidential suite has two private lifts, but Mr Trump had to be shepherded through public corridors in the huge hospital to get to where his convoy was waiting.
On the road in front of the hospital the motorcade spent more than five minutes moving slowly past hundreds of flag-waving fans cheering: ‘Four more years!’
Inside the vehicle there certainly wasn’t enough space for effective distancing between Mr Trump and the other occupants – a pair of Secret Service agents sitting in the front seats just feet away.
The drive-by – clearly intended as a publicity stunt to reassure supporters dismayed by reports that he was far more ill than his doctors admitted – lasted just a few minutes before Mr Trump returned to the hospital.
A White House spokesman insisted ‘appropriate precautions’ were taken to protect the President and others involved, and the trip had been approved by Mr Trump’s doctors.
But Dr James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University’s emergency medicine division – and a Covid-19 consultant at Walter Reed, said: ‘Every person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential drive-by has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theatre. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theatre. This is insanity.
‘That presidential SUV is hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of Covid-19 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.’
Secret Service agents are usually tight-lipped, but some spoke out yesterday. One told CNN the jaunt ‘should never have happened’, while another said it was ‘simply reckless’. Colleagues contradicted claims by Trump aides that the two agents were volunteers, saying it was immensely difficult to turn down a presidential request.
‘He’s not even pretending to care now,’ an agent told the Washington Post. Another, also speaking anonymously, contemptuously asked: ‘Where are the adults?’
However, Mark Meadows, Mr Trump’s chief of staff, said the agents in the car had already gone with the President by helicopter from the White House to the hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.