We strongly suspect Saturday will forever be remembered for the controversy surrounding White House Chief of Staff's "off-the-record" comments to the White House press corps.
The backlash was predictably intense - and revealing: it prompted Ryan Lizza and a handful of his colleagues to 'out' Meadows en masse, and somehow triggered a flurry of morbid rumors, attributed to "anonymous" senior administration officials, claiming Trump's condition was "much more serious" than the administration was letting on, leading to percolating suspicions that Trump might be on his death bed.Vaity Fair's Gabe Sherman led the pack with this snippet of "reporting".
Conversations w Republicans close to WH over last 12 hours indicate it’s been far more dire than WH has said. Before being taken to Walter Reed, Trump kept asking aides, “Am I going out like Stan Chera? Am I?” (Chera was Trump’s NYC friend who died of Covid in April)
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman)
Per source, Trump was told on Friday he could go to Walter Reed voluntarily, but he would be taken no matter what when his condition worsened. Doctors told Trump if he waited he could lose ability to walk to Marine One (optics of a wheelchair or stretcher obvs would be terrible)
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman)
One reason Trump could be withholding truth of his condition: he doesn’t want calls for transfer of power to grow. At what point does Cabinet consider 25th amendment?
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman)
That led to rumors that Trump would somehow try to tap Ivanka to lead the country in the event of his incapacitation, bypassing the 25th amendment.
Sources: Trump had heart palpitations on Friday, a possible negative side effect of Regeneron antibody treatment. His fever reached 103. And a G7 ally wonders if he’ll appoint Ivanka president instead of Pence. My latest:
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman)
https://t.co/ND8zVtyodU
In response, the White House rallied Trump to appear for a 4-minute speech where he explained that him getting ill was simply fate, and that as president, he had a responsibility to stay out front, and in the public eye, not simply hide out in the White House.
Critics tore apart the footage, and within 30 minutes of the video's publication, amateur film analysts had zeroed in on one editing break where a cough was clearly edited out.
Trump coughed here after the word “therapeutics” and it was edited out using the morph cut feature in @AdobePremiereCC
— chris evans (@notcapnamerica)
👀 pic.twitter.com/1IXvXaCa8l
Mark Meadows went on Fox last night to cop to his "off the record" comments and explain that Trump really is feeling much better. Sherman reported that Trump's worsening condition on Friday might have been partly due to a bad reaction to Regeneron's treatment, but the unflattering portrayal published by Vanity Fair also included the following line, which appears to be the conventional view: "if Trump can get out of the hospital by Tuesday, then he’s gone through the worst of it. But if he’s still there after Tuesday, the worst is yet to come."
In response to the growing pressure from the press, the White House released a set of photos late Saturday evening purporting to show Trump "working" from Walter Reed. But they were almost immediately attacked for being obviously staged, and only further cementing the notion that Trump, while not deathly ill, is still pretty sick.
NEW: The White House has released these photos which purport to show @realDonaldTrump "at work" at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. pic.twitter.com/vSRcH7o2Hq
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg)
NEW: The White House has released these photos which purport to show @realDonaldTrump "at work" at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. pic.twitter.com/vSRcH7o2Hq
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg)
Aviation reporter Jon Ostrower published a twitter thread where he examined the metadata embedded in the photo files and discovered that they were taken within ten minutes of each other, which would suggest that they may have been staged (according to the White House, Trump worked through the afternoon and into the evening).
Curious, old digital reporter’s trick, is there any EXIF data inside those two photos of the President that the White House released from Walter Reed?
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower)
The photos released by the WH tonight of the president working at Walter Reed were taken 10 minutes apart at 5:25:59 pm and 5:35:40 pm ET Saturday, according to the EXIF data embedded in both @AP wire postings that were shared by the White House this evening. pic.twitter.com/EzeqIkGdf7
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower)
Others slammed Trump for appearing to struggle to sign his name to a blank piece of paper.
Nothing can stop him from working for the American people. RELENTLESS! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/2ZSat782qe
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump)
He is signing blank pieces of paper. TRUTHLESS. https://t.co/wpth3LBEJt
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance)
With little new information out Sunday morning, the media has largely turned to speculating about what Trump's illness will mean for the election, while Trump's allies appeared on Fox News to talk up Trump's condition and state of mind. Steve Cortes, a Trump campaign aide, says on Fox that Trump is “on the DL right now but very shortly he’s going to be back in the game throwing 95 mph fastballs”
CNN is apparently having troubling booking guests for its Sunday shows.
.@jaketapper says CNN asked the WH for either Pence, Meadows, Fauci, Birx, Azar, Adams, Collins, Redfield, Kushner or O'Brien, among others, to come on SOTU. "The White House declined to provide any of them -- any of them -- to update you on the president's condition."
— Nolan D. McCaskill (@NolanDMcCaskill)
And is lashing out in true form.
"It is of the utmost importance for the WH to provide you, the American people, with information, accurate information, factual information, about the president's condition. We asked the WH for someone to be here to do just that today. ... The WH declined to provide any of them." pic.twitter.com/hND0tSV9XA
— Nolan D. McCaskill (@NolanDMcCaskill)
Bloomberg focused on rehashing Trump's blithe response to the virus. One 'expert' claimed that "[i]f you had to invent a way to transmit this virus, that’s the environment you would invent," said Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "The only higher risk environment I can think of is the air in an ICU that is caring for lots of Covid patients."
Even WSJ's coverage seemed to focus on Biden's widening 14-point lead in the polls.
President Trump is drawing his weakest voter support of the year in his reelection race following Tuesday’s contentious debate with former Vice President Joe Biden, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. https://t.co/E0Tj6FcasG
— Paul Vieira (@paulvieira)
Though, in one of the more useful pieces of reporting, WSJ tracked every major Trump Administration event in the last week or so and created a visual guide to the COVID-19 status of every major administration official present.
At any rate, it's been a crazy week. We imagine we'll be hearing more from the administration soon.
What a year of a week. pic.twitter.com/hdqAV0A5jQ
— Markus Batchelor (@MarkusforDC)
To recap, with White House aide and Trump personal assistant Nick Lunas testing positive Sunday morning, and Chris Christie testing positive and being hospitalized last night, the number infected as swelled to 26. Sen. Susan Collins has tested negative.
Christie apparently exposed a bunch of ABC News staffers to the virus, and they all now apparently need to quarantine.
Breaking—a number of @ABC News staff w/ direct contact with Chris Christie, who was an ABC News debate pundit, must now go into quarantine. ABC executives are absolutely fuming that Christie’s “reckless behavior is risking the lives of ABC News employees."https://t.co/ZVmcSZE3J2
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing)
As of Saturday morning, 24 people have tested positive in the White House outbreak, as the number of infected staffers who attended the Cleveland debate climbed from 1 to 11.
1+2. President & Melania Trump
3. Bill Stepien, Trump campaign mgr
4. Hope Hicks
5. Kellyanne Conway
6. Sen. Ron Johnson
7. Sen. Mike Lee
8. Sen. Thom Tillis
9. Ronna McDaniel
10. Notre Dame Pres. Jenkins
11-13. Three WH reporters
14-24. Eleven staffers from Cleveland debate
25. Chris Christie
26. Nick Lunas
Bloomberg is keeping a comprehensive tally of everyone who has tested positive and negative. We imagine we'll be hearing more from the Sunday shows.
