Trump views eclipse without special glasses
At first, the president ignores safety warnings.
Like many Americans, President Donald Trump on Monday gazed at the first solar eclipse in a century to cross the continental United States, coast to coast. But at one point he appeared to ignore precautions that scientists and doctors warned were necessary to protect people’s eyes during the celestial event.
Trump emerged on the Truman Balcony of the White House with first lady Mela- nia and son Barron shortly before the eclipse reached its apex in Washington. He waved at the crowd and responded to a reporter’s question — “How’s the view?” — with a thumbs up, according to the White House press pool.
Then he tilted his head upward and pointed toward the sky, prompting a White House aide standing beneath the balcony to shout, “Don’t look,” according to the press pool. It is unclear whether Trump looked directly at the sun.
As Blaine Friedlander wrote in The Washington Post, the first rule of enjoying a solar eclipse is to never look directly at the sun without eclipse glasses, because it could damage the eyes, advice that Trump’s daughter Ivanka also gave her Twitter followers.
Staring at the sun can cause a condition called solar retinopathy, which leads to a decrease or a distortion of a person’s central vision, according to Sveta Kavali, an ophthalmologist and retina specialist at Saint Louis University.
“That damage is typically irreversible, and there’s no treatment for this,” Kavali said in a Saint Louis University video about viewing the eclipse safely.
Trump eventually put on special viewing glasses and watched the partial eclipse, which covered about 80 percent of the sun, for about 90 seconds.