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President Trump went for a joyride outside his hospital Sunday, hours after his doctors said he could be released as soon as Monday even though he recently had two episodes of reduced oxygen levels due to his COVID-19 infection.
In a video shared on Twitter, Trump teased “a little surprise” to supporters gathered outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he’s been receiving treatment since Friday evening.
“They’ve been out there for a long time and they’ve got Trump flags and they love our country,” the president said. “I’m not telling anybody but you,” he told his nearly 90 million Twitter followers followers.
With that, he made for his motorcade, which slowly drove past his supporters. Trump was seen wearing a mask and waving to the cheering group.
Earlier Sunday, his doctors said the president had a “high fever” on Friday and his oxygen levels had dropped that day and Saturday.
The commander-in-chief received supplemental oxygen for about an hour on Friday and a second time on Saturday, they said. His oxygen levels at one point dipped to 93% of their normal capacity, but have gone back up to 98%, they added.
The physicians refused to state whether Trump has experienced lung damage.
Docs put Trump on the steroid dexamethasone, according to White House physician Dr. Sean Conley. That’s on top of treatment with the experimental drug remdesivir, which hasn’t caused any side effects in the president, said Dr. Brian Garibaldi, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who’s assisting with Trump’s treatment.
In the Sunday night Twitter video, Trump claimed he’d gotten “great reports” from doctors, but didn’t share any details.
“It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID. I learned it by really going to school,” the president said.
“This is the real school. This isn’t the ‘let’s-read-thebooks’ school,” he rambled. “And I get it and I understand it and it’s a very interesting thing and I’m going to be lettingting you know about itit. ”
At the press conference, Conley said, “The president has continued to improve.”
“The fact of the matter is that he’s doing really well,” he added. “He is responding, and if everything continues to go well, we’re going to start a discharge plan back to the White House.”
Trump was hospitalized Friday evening after being diagnosed with COVID. Since then, the nation has been consumed by questions about details of his condition, with some White House officials and medical staff providing conflicting accounts.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Saturday: “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next
48 hours will be critical in terms of his carecare.”
Conley said Sunday that Meadows’ comments had been “misconstrued.”
Conley himself had danced around the question about whether Trump had been put on oxygen on Saturday.
“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,” he said Sunday.
Trump was said to be furious with Meadows for contradicting his doctor, CNN and The New York Times quoted administration sources as saying.
The president’s stunning diagnosis came after he downplayed the risks posed by coronavirus for months and frequently violated safety recommendations from experts in his own administration. He also mocked Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for what he characterized as excessive mask use at last week’s debate, where Trump’s family members refused to wear masks.
“We believe in masks. We also believe in some element of individual choice,” senior Trump campaign adviser Steve Cortes said on “Fox News Sunday.”
In a video Trump tweeted from Walter Reed on Saturday night, he sought to provide an upbeat take on the head-spinning developments.
“I feel much better now,” the president said in the Twitter post. “We’re working hard to get me all the way back.”
White House aide Nick Luna tested positive for the virus on Saturday night, the latest in a string of officials to get the bad news.
Vice President Mike Pence and his wife tested negative on Sunday. While he was in close proximity to Trump before the president was hospitalized — conditions that necessitate a quarantine, according to many health experts — Pence has refused to stop campaigning.
The debate between him and Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris is still set for this Tuesday in Salt Lake City.
Pence is “going to have a very full aggressive schedule, as will the first family,” Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”