Can we believe anything we’re hearing about
President Trump and the coronavirus?
Dr. Sean Conley,
physician to President Donald Trump, briefs reporters at Walter Reed
National Military Medical Center on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
So let’s review.
On Thursday night, President Donald
Trump phoned into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News and said he had taken a
COVID-19 test and felt fine. A couple of hours later, he tweeted that he
had tested positive. By Friday evening, he was admitted to the hospital. By
Saturday morning, the medical team treating him painted a rosy picture of
Trump’s health, while Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was leaking to
reporters that the president’s condition deteriorated so rapidly that it
was a major cause for concern, adding “we’re still not on a clear path to a
full recovery.” Then, by Sunday morning, the medical team said Trump could
be discharged from the hospital as early as today. Sunday evening, Trump
said hello to supporters through the window of an SUV and then returned to
the hospital.
When you add it up, this all happened
in less than 72 hours. And when you add it all up, something doesn’t, well,
add up.
Once again, mixed messages and the
feeling that there’s a total lack of transparency coming from the Trump
administration has left us wondering what, if anything, is true.
Much of the blame can be directed
towards statements made by Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley, the head of the
Trump medical team whose initial press conference on Saturday was full of
misleading answers and evasive statements. He even admitted in Sunday’s
press conference that he wasn’t exactly forthcoming the day before when
asked if the president had been on supplemental oxygen.
“I was trying to reflect the upbeat
attitude of the team, that the president, that his course of illness has
had,” Conley said. “(I) didn’t want to give any information that might
steer the course of illness in another direction. And in doing so, came off
like we’re trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. The fact
of the matter is that he’s doing really well.”
Almost everything about that quote is
flabbergasting and infuriating. But it’s also not unreasonable to suggest
that Conley’s optimistic attitude was at the direction of Trump, who reportedly was furious with Meadows for
contradicting the medical team on Saturday.
Even Conley’s press conference on
Sunday — again full of half-statements, non-denial denials and double-talk
— left more questions than answers. For instance, when asked what X-rays
and CT scans of Trump’s lungs showed, Conley said there were “expected findings.”
Expected findings? What does that mean?
When asked if Trump’s oxygen levels
had dropped below 90%, Conley said, “it wasn’t in the low 80s or anything
like that.” Again, Conley didn’t really answer the question.
CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta,
on air after Conley’s Sunday press update, said, “If you’re going (to
provide updates) then you’re going to have to be absolutely honest. It
wasn’t just sort of conveying an upbeat attitude, he was purposefully
misleading (Saturday) about a very basic issue, which was whether or not
the president had been on supplemental oxygen.”
Gupta added that he wasn’t
questioning the credentials and abilities of the doctors in charge of
Trump’s care, but that “we have to sort of read between the lines here”
when it comes to deciphering the information coming out of the press
briefings.
“They are telegraphing concerns here
and the next few days are going to be critical for him,” Gupta said. “He’s
in the right place, he’s got great doctors, but this is a significant issue
they’re dealing with.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper made an excellent
point: Perhaps Conley and the medical team are telegraphing concerns to
brilliant medical minds such as Gupta, but not to lay people (that’s most
Americans) who don’t know the purpose of certain medications and which
symptoms truly are life-threatening.
Honestly, it’s hard to know what to
believe.
So where do we turn for information?
NBC’s Kate Snow
interviewing Dr. John Torres on Sunday. (Courtesy: NBC News)
Well, medical experts such as Gupta
are a good place to start. Such experts can take what information is coming
out and relate what it means. These moments, when news outlets are turning
to their medical correspondents, are when the coverage is at its best.
For example, during a special NBC
report on Sunday, NBC News medical correspondent Dr. John Torres said, “The
fact that he got the steroid, the fact that he got the dexamethasone,
again, sends up a bit of a red flag that there is something going on here.
He is a little worse off than what we’re hearing because I think they might
be painting a bit of a rosy picture for everybody. To me, out of everything
that Dr. Conley and the other doctor said, that is the most concerning
part.”
These are the kinds of tidbits that
help put everything a bit more into perspective, especially if we are not
going to get the straight dope from official spokespeople. Instead of
looking closely at videos of the president speaking or riding in cars and
trying to figure out how well or sick he is, we should lean into the
reporting and the analysis of medical experts who know what they’re talking
about.
The other sources to trust: the
reliable White House reporters who have sources in the administration and
who are getting the real story. Reporters such as Maggie Haberman and Peter
Baker of The New York Times, a variety of reporters at The Washington Post,
including Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim, and network correspondents such as
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, ABC’s Jonathan Karl, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, CBS’s
Weijia Jiang, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor, as well as the Associated Press’
Jonathan Lemire and many, many more are plugged in and have been more
reliable than anyone speaking on behalf of the president, most particularly
Conley and his medical team.
Best perspective
I found this quote from CNN White
House reporter Kaitlan Collins to put everything into excellent
perspective: “Obviously giving information about the president’s condition
is not going to affect how that condition turns out. And talking about his
attitude is nowhere the same as talking about his vitals, which is what
people actually want to know about the president of the United States.
Though the doctor is in a tough position because he is meeting with the
president right before he comes out to do these briefings and we’ve been
told the president has been extremely critical of people speaking on his
behalf. He’s frustrated that he, himself, cannot address the media.”
The tone of the coverage
As you would expect, there are
noticeable differences in the tone of the Trump coronavirus coverage on the
cable networks. And, yes, I’m talking about what kind of coverage we’re
seeing on Fox News and what we’re seeing on CNN and MSNBC. The Fox News
coverage has tended to be a tad optimistic. The CNN/MSNBC coverage has
leaned toward more skepticism about the information we are getting.
Does that have anything to do with
how some — not all, but some — on-air personalities feel about Trump,
either in a positive or negative way? We would be naive to believe that
isn’t playing a role in some of the coverage. There are some cable news
hosts who want to see Trump reelected and others who want to see him
defeated by Joe Biden. It’s hard to see how those personal feelings can be
totally kept out of their commentary.
Now, perhaps that skepticism comes
from a dislike of the president. And some of it comes from the fact that
this administration has a history of lying and misleading the public.
Regardless, that doesn’t make the skepticism wrong. There is so much
unknown and so much at stake that pushing for clarity and facts is the
responsible thing for good journalists to do.
At the same time, there is another
aspect to this story that goes beyond the president’s health and that’s how
this all could impact those who have not taken the coronavirus seriously.
Let’s face it, we’re talking about many Trump supporters who aren’t as vigilant
as they need to be when it comes to the coronavirus. Some news coverage
showing the seriousness of this virus has been aimed at those people and
that, too, is an aspect of this story worth pursuing.
Pushing back
Eric Trump and Ivanka
Trump at last Tuesday’s presidential debate. (Olivier Douliery/Pool via AP)
“Fox News Sunday” moderator Chris
Wallace got into it with Trump campaign advisor Steve Cortes. First, Cortes
criticized Wallace for not being a neutral moderator in last Tuesday’s
debate. Cortes said, “He had to debate not just Joe Biden, but you as
well.”
Wallace then criticized the Trump
people for not wearing masks and practicing social distancing at the
debate.
“They weren't distanced and there
were rules, and there was no freedom of choice,” Wallace said. “They broke
the rules.”
Wallace would know. He was there.
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