Donald! Trump!

It’s still there at 1:03 in Trump’s version

I think it's just a burp.

My arse is he getting out tomorrow

Isn't that a touching tweet from Ivanka, his lover.

That’s a big pen. Oh wait. Small hands...

I don't wish him dead just very unwell with COVID, voted out, prosecuted, and thrown in prison bankrupt.

Funny how their was a flurry of “Ive tested positive” statements from the powers that be, then nothing. It’s almost as if they don’t want the electorate to see them as weak🙄🙄.

I only see this as a positive.

I suspect that's a comic in his hands tbh.

Kuco

Full Member

I don’t wish him dead just very unwell with COVID, voted out, prosecuted, and thrown in prison bankrupt.

And bummed a lot.

He won’t ever go to a real prison though. Just something akin to a holiday camp. Therefore death is preferable in my eyes. That or just being really ill for the rest of his shitty life.

Don’t they only use dexamethasone when it’s getting bad?

Yes, apparently it is a waste of time otherwise.

I bet Melania is rubbing her hands waiting for pay day. She’s earn’t it🤮

^^ She serves to show that there are some things in life that are worth no amount of money.

I bet Melania is rubbing her hands waiting for pay day. She’s earn’t it🤮

Does she inherit the full $421 million debt or is it shared out between her and his kids?

You're COVID positive and hospitalised, so you decide to go for a drive round the block 🤦🏻‍♂️

https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1312875106964627457?s=19

that's crying out for a weekend at Bernies gif

https://twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1312911255557025793

Applying the same logic to trump's little outing, anyone in the car with him would also be exposed.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/519562-walter-reed-attending-physician-swipes-at-trump-for-motorcade-visit

Annoyingly this has just turned into another distraction and ego trip for him

I'm now just thinking the best outcome is a quick recovery so he can resume campaigning and hopefully being thrashed fair and square in the election

he can't be that ill, took time out from Hospital to do a drive past photo op and wave to all his supporters outside the hospital... stinks of looking for the sympathy vote..is he ill with Covid or is just more "fake news"......

It would be hilarious if he faked it now and then caught it in a couple of weeks. Trump's equivalent to at standing at the bar loudly making an important phone call, only for the phone he is holding to his ear to start ringing.

It would be hilarious if he faked it now and then caught it in a couple of weeks.

He's not faking it. He has it. He's just dumb as shit and utterly unconcerned about anyone else.

“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater.This is insanity"

Listening to the Trump-supporting headbangers being interviewed on the radio this morning, and then listening to him speak, its frankly terrifying how effectively he has interwoven and conflated love of Trump with love of America. That not vocally supporting him is somehow unpatriotic. And we all know there is no greater sin than that.

Its proper fascist dictator stuff. Though liberals (or anyone with the remotest intelligence) may baulk at, or even openly mock this new nationalist populism, 'the people' are really buying into it.

Scary times.

I still think he's going to walk this election. Then god only knows how unhinged he'll get during a second term

To be fair… they do that for all POTUS… because they are like a temporary king, not just a temporary prime minister.

I still think he’ll be president come next year as well. He’ll get fewer votes than his opponent, again, but be re-appointed.

The man is a weapons grade bellend.  I wonder if there are any legal ramifications should one of the staff in the car get ill and die?  I also think he'll get re-elected, as would Boris if there was an election tomorrow.  2020 isn't done with us yet! 🙁

that’s crying out for a weekend at Bernies gif

The wording on the Melania twit is interesting. Can't help but feel it should read "and the medical staff that would drag her up to him"

I still think he’s going to walk this election. Then god only knows how unhinged he’ll get during a second term

Me too. I think he'll lose the popular vote by a landslide and get completely shunned in the sane states but get back in through his core support in the knuckle dragger states carrying enough votes in the electoral college. Effectively an exaggeration of last time.

Dexamethasone is a helluva drug. He'll have been bouncing off the walls in there, without anyone brave enough to say no to his pathological need for approval from his fans.

What a scumbag - his vehicle will probably have been sealed against chemical attack, which means it's the perfect environment for delivering a high viral load to his secret service detail.

Plus, he's not out of the woods yet. Plenty of patients rally briefly and then dip again towards the 7-10 days mark.

Playing with fire IMO if he is COVID positive.

https://twitter.com/tokyosexwhale/status/1312712515281989633

I still think he’s going to walk this election.

No. He's massively behind and Biden gained in polls following the debate. I think Trump has utterly misread the electorate. His core voters go for the racist strongman stuff, but that only gets him to 40%. Moderates are repelled by that. In 2016 those voters thought the crazy stuff was just a show and that he was a serious businessman who knew how to get things done, while Hillary Clinton is a difficult candidate for many people to like. Now that they've seen the reality, they are utterly repulsed and have switched to Biden because he comes across as a decent, moderate guy.

The electoral college is biased towards Republicans, but that gives them an advantage of about 2 to 3 percent. If Trump could keep the popular vote loss to 3% or so, he might have a chance of winning the electoral college by litigating results in swing states, but as things stand, he's heading for a massive loss. Clinton won the popular vote by about 2 percent and lost the electoral college by less than 100 000 votes in a few swing states. Those swing states are now quite solidly polling to Biden and his national polling lead is somewhere in the 6% to 10% range. Plus, it's moving towards Biden and away from Trump because the swing voters are unimpressed with that shitshow of a debate. Trump's hospital stunt might impress his core voters, but voters overall are unimpressed with his handling of the pandemic so keeping that in the news is the worst thing Trump can do.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

hols2 - thanks for posting that; saved me from doing something similar.

From The Washington Post;

The assertion by President Trump’s doctors that he could be discharged from the hospital as early as Monday astonished outside infectious-disease experts, who said he remains in a dangerous period of vulnerability when some covid-19 patients decline precipitously and require urgent intervention.
During a midday briefing Sunday on the president’s medical condition and treatment, White House physician Sean Conley and his team twice referred to planning to release Trump as early as the next day “if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today.”
The talk of the president’s release from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center came as Conley and two other physicians treating Trump gave an upbeat but incomplete characterization of his condition. Outside doctors said they were mystified by what they said was an inconsistent portrayal of the president’s illness as relatively mild despite the aggressive mix of treatments he is getting.
The president’s medical team was at times cryptic: Asked whether CT scans showed any signs of pneumonia or lung damage, Conley replied, “Yeah, so we’re tracking all of that. There’s some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.” He declined to elaborate. At another point, Sean Dooley, a pulmonary critical care doctor, said the president’s “cardiac, liver and kidney function demonstrates continued normal findings, or improving findings.” He did not disclose which of those had been subpar.
Trump’s doctor makes contradictory statements about giving him oxygen
On Oct. 3, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley said President Trump was not given supplemental oxygen to treat his coronavirus diagnosis. The next day, he backtracked. (The Washington Post)
“My impression is they are telling us everything that is of good news and limiting everything that is not perfect,” said Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Robert Wachter, chairman of the University of California at San Francisco’s department of medicine, said any patient of his with Trump’s symptoms and treatment who wanted to be discharged from the hospital three days after their admission would need to sign out against doctors’ orders because it would be so ill-advised.
“For someone sick enough to have required remdesivir and dexamethasone, I can’t think of a situation in which a patient would be okay to leave on day three, even with the White House’s medical capacity,” Wachter said.
“Absolutely not,” William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, said of the idea of sending Trump back to the White House on Monday.
“I will bet dollars to doughnuts it’s the president and his political aides who are talking about discharge, not his doctors,” Schaffner added.
Medical consensus has emerged that covid-19 patients are especially vulnerable for a period of a week to 10 days after their first symptoms. Some patients who seem relatively healthy suddenly deteriorate, either because of the virus itself or an excessive immune response that can cause damage to several organs, including the heart.
A multitude of possible cardiac complications have also been associated with covid-19, the most prominent of which involves a hardening of the walls of the heart that makes it difficult to pump blood and can lead to heart failure.
“People can be doing okay, but it can get a rocky very quickly,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh.
Underscoring the concerns is the fact that President Trump may be the first patient — he is certainly among the first — to receive an unusual combination of three strong treatments, with a handful of supplements and an over-the-counter drug sprinkled in.
“He’s gotten kitchen-sink therapy,” said Walensky, of Massachusetts General. She noted that when dexamethasone was tested in clinical trials earlier this year, none of the patients were also given the experimental antibody cocktail Trump is receiving.
Several doctors expressed worry there is no data indicating how these treatments might react with each other, especially in an overweight 74-year-old man with a mild heart condition who is in the high risk group for severe coronavirus disease.
The list of treatments the president is receiving includes a five-day regimen of the antiviral remdesivir; monoclonal antibodies, an experimental treatment still in clinical trials; and dexamethasone, a steroid found to help patients with advanced respiratory distress. Trump is also taking two unproven supplements (vitamin D and zinc) and an over-the-counter drug (famotidine, the active ingredient in heart burn medication Pepcid.) The president has personally touted the benefits of zinc — in combination with hydroxychloroquine — for the coronavirus, and his administration funded trials of famotidine despite allegations of conflicts of interest.
“All of these are data-free zones. We just don’t know,” Walensky said. She noted the mix of treatments — especially the use of a steroid usually reserved for coronavirus patients whose immune systems are over-functioning — is inconsistent with the characterization by Trump’s physicians that he is getting better.
Lewis Kaplan, a critical care doctor at the University of Pennsylvania and the Veteran’s Administration, said this type of untested combination therapy is typically only applied as a desperate measure — when a patient is seriously ill and probably in the intensive care unit.
On the other hand, he said, giving this cocktail to a sitting head of state as a preventive measure as a way to reduce the risk of a more severe course could be construed as “reasonable.”
“And we just don’t know which one reflects reality,” Kaplan said.
The use of monoclonal antibodies is extremely limited since the treatment is still in late-stage trials so patients would not typically take it in combination with remdesivir. Remdesivir, the Gilead Sciences drug authorized for emergency use in May, is more widely available, but many hospitals reserve it only for the sickest patients.
Joshua Barocas, an infectious-disease specialist at the Boston University School of Medicine, said the science makes sense although he does not know of a case in which a patient received both those treatments at the same time.
“The monoclonal antibodies neutralize the virus and the remdesivir stops the viral replication,” he explained.
Dexamethasone is recommended only in patients who are extremely ill, according to many guidelines, but a number of hospitals routinely give the drug to any patient who requires supplemental oxygen, if only for a few hours. A recent study found it tends to reduce deaths from the virus but nearly a quarter of infected patients getting it with supplemental oxygen — as Trump has — still died.
Steroids in high doses and over long periods of time also can lead to serious changes in mental status that include delirium, hallucinations and confusion.
Barocas said that at the dose typically used for the coronavirus, this is unlikely to be an issue and White House physicians are probably monitoring the President closely.
“It’s not outside the range of possibilities that he could have that adverse event,” Barocas said.
Another drug the president is taking — famotidine — remains controversial. The Trump administration earlier this year granted a $21 million emergency contract to researchers to try famotidine on ill patients — despite a whistleblower complaint that it was rushed through by the Department of Health and Human Services without the necessary scientific oversight. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, internal emails show a top Food and Drug Administration official expressed concerns that the daily injections, which are experimental, pushed safety “to the limits.”
“There’s no evidence at this point to suggest vitamin D or zinc do anything for or against covid. And I haven’t seen any good evidence about famotidine,” Barocas said.
“I really don’t want these other medications to become the next hydroxychloroquine,” he added, referring to Trump’s touting of the antimalarial drug without evidence of its effectiveness. The drug was subsequently found to offer no benefits to covid-19 patients.
Hydroxychloroquine is not on the list of medications his doctors said Trump is taking at Walter Reed.
Another treatment missing from Trump’s regimen arsenal is a blood thinner given as a standard practice these days to any hospitalized patient with covid-19 to reduce the risk of clots. In the spring, many doctors were surprised to find that microclots that appear in the lungs and heart appeared to be killing some patients.
Doctors speculated the president may have declined the treatment after what happened to his younger brother, Robert, who died in August due to brain bleeds. He had been taking blood thinners.
Experts acknowledged discharge from the hospital for a sitting president would be very different than for a normal person — and would not necessarily indicate the same level of stability in his illness.
Hospitals, they noted, typically do not discharge patients who are on IV medications, and Trump is in the middle of a five-day course of remdesivir that is given intravenously.
But a team of specialists could continue to monitor him at the White House and would probably have access to heart monitors, oxygen tanks, and even a “crash cart” — which contains materials to resuscitate a patient should he need that.
The president would also have his regular fleet of helicopters and other transportation at his disposal to get him to the hospital quickly if needed.
But Barocas said the decision whether to discharge the president should not just be about his condition — but also about the White House staff, including cooks, butlers, housekeepers and other personnel, who work in the buildings.
When it comes to infectious diseases like covid-19, he said, “we want to make sure we have a place for someone that is not only safe for them — but safe for them to isolate so they won’t infect other people.”
“My concern is,” he said. “What are the protections for the people who will have to care for this elderly man who probably won’t isolate and won’t wear a mask?”

I really don't believe he has it.

It's a ploy/stunt.

That speech about really understanding the virus because he has it, is call to keep him in charge so he can fix it.

A 2nd term when he doesn't need to care about re-election, will be the scary one.

Exactly hols2, don't be so cynical and pessimistic guys. Years of electoral misery has clearly taken its toll.

Although you're right to never underestimate the braindead US voters the polls and numbers are overwhelmingly positive, even allowing for the skewing of the electoral college.

Annoyingly this has just turned into another distraction and ego trip for him

I’m now just thinking the best outcome is a quick recovery so he can resume campaigning and hopefully being thrashed fair and square in the election

Nope,I want him to get Long Covid (with all the best bits) so that it messes with his health all through his campaign.  I want him to suffer lots of tiny setbacks and see him turned in to an even more pathetic figure....just before he goes to jail.

I'm worried that the experimental cocktail will work and he'll take all the credit for it. Cos you know he will.

"The doctors didn't want to give me these drugs but I made them, and now I'm better. See how clever I am!"

I really don’t believe he has it.

It’s a ploy/stunt.

Nonsense. He definitely has it, as do all the other Republicans who were infected at the same time. The White House tried to cover it up so he could keep campaigning but it leaked and they eventually had to admit it. Trump contracting covid is a disaster for his campaign. It makes all his downplaying of the seriousness of it look foolish and it prevents him from campaigning, which he desperately needs to do because he's behind in the polls with four weeks to go to the election.

On top of that, they are desperately trying to push through a Supreme Court nomination, but two of the key senators they need for that are now infected so Democrats have a good chance of delaying that until after the election. That's an utter disaster for the Republican Party.

This is the biggest gift the Biden campaign could have asked for, so there is no way they are trying to fake it.

Annoyingly this has just turned into another distraction and ego trip for him

I’m now just thinking the best outcome is a quick recovery so he can resume campaigning and hopefully being thrashed fair and square in the election

Not sure it works that way. Grifters/conmen/narcissists manipulate every situation to their advantage. If there’s no ‘situation‘ to manipulate then simply create one. Donald began early by manipulating the ‘situation’ that Obama was non-white. The whole ‘birth certificate’ and ‘Muslim’ thing played very well indeed with the type of electorate who are disgusted/fearful of ‘the other’. And we all know who are considered ‘the other’ as far as USA ‘tradition’ goes.

The ego-trip is a given. ‘Fair and square’ don’t feature. It’s not even ‘all or nothing’ it’s simply ‘all’. The only other option is denial. But Donald will always deny he is ever in denial*

*Unless it can be used to personal advantage ie ‘I tried to think well of X, I tried to be politically cuhrrect, gave it my vuhhrry vuhrry best, uhr, intentions? The best intentions you can imagine, folks. But now it seems that I was proven wrong. I was simply in denial. X person is a nasty person. I’ll never make the same mistake of being in denial again. The left are vuhrry bad people folks. Nasty people’. Etc...

Every time he speaks he reminds me of a drunken uncle crashing the speeches at a wedding reception. His intention being to trash the groom and instead sell himself.

This news story is an example of why he's not faking it - it makes him look like a fool to the moderate voters he needs to attract.

Trump takes a brief car ride, ignoring own COVID infection

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Infected and contagious, President Donald Trump briefly ventured out in a motorcade on Sunday to salute cheering supporters, a move that disregarded precautions meant to contain the deadly virus that has forced his hospitalization and killed more than 209,000 Americans.

Hours earlier, Trump’s medical team reported that his blood oxygen level dropped suddenly twice in recent days and that they gave him a steroid typically only recommended for the very sick. Still, the doctors said Trump’s health is improving and that he could be discharged as early as Monday.

With one month until Election Day, Trump was eager to project strength despite his illness. The still-infectious president surprised supporters who had gathered outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, driving by in a black SUV with the windows rolled up. Secret Service agents inside the vehicle could be seen in masks and other protective gear.

The move capped a weekend of contradictions that fueled confusion about Trump’s health, which has imperiled the leadership of the U.S. government and upended the final stages of the presidential campaign. While Trump’s physician offered a rosy prognosis on his condition, his briefings lacked basic information, including the findings of lung scans, or were quickly muddled by more serious assessments of the president’s health by other officials.

In a short video released by the White House on Sunday, Trump insisted he understood the gravity of the moment. But his actions moments later, by leaving the hospital and sitting inside the SUV with others, suggested otherwise.

“This is insanity,” Dr. James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed who is a critic of Trump and his handling of the pandemic. “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die.”

“For political theater,” the doctor added. “Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater.”

https://twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1312739803838984192

Polls, polls, polls... he can still win his reappointment (while also losing the popular vote by much more than four years ago). He's going to win the "on the day" vote by some margin... and argue that they get on with appointing him, rather than waiting for the postal votes to be counted (which he will lose by an even bigger margin). The states that resist this will be the states where his loss has been nailed on for years anyway.

He's bet everything on black. The world leader who defeated the virus, proved a number of antivirals and treatments work and now knows more than anyone what it's like to have it (sat in a money-no-object presidential suite).

Could go either way.

I do love a bit of hubris.

https://twitter.com/christinawilkie/status/1312814290143977479

This from the blurb:

My new design is informed by superhero graphic art because surrounding President Donald J. Trump is a mythos never before seen in a United States president, a mythos not unlike the Epic of Gilgamesh.

lol

Vlad approves

Both hubris and possibly a little premature.
I hope he does defeat it, but doesn't seem nailed on yet.

He’s going to win the “on the day” vote by some margin… and argue that they get on with appointing him, rather than waiting for the postal votes to be counted (which he will lose by an even bigger margin). The states that resist this will be the states where his loss has been nailed on for years anyway.

That can only work in states where the Republican Party has total control (i.e. House, Senate, Governor, and Supreme Court). The swing states are unlikely to have that situation.

Nevada has a Democratic Governor.
Wisconsin has a Democratic Governor.
Pennsylvania has a Democratic Governor.
Michigan has a Democratic Governor.

Biden is ahead in those states and Trump has no chance of having the vote stopped early just because he says so. Biden is also ahead in Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida, which have Republican Governors. Trump absolutely has to win those three states. If Republican officials in those states did anything as blatantly corrupt as just stopping counting votes, they would effectively be committing career suicide for any future state-wide office because those states are fairly balanced between Democratic and Republican voters. It's not impossible that they might try it if they thought it had a serious chance of success, but that would only happen if they were utterly confident that Trump would win the states with Democratic governors. If Trump won those Democratic states, there wouldn't be any need for the Republican controlled states to cheat anyway because Trump would win without cheating. So chances of the states going along with a dumb scheme like that are pretty much zero.

What if he won those states "on the day" ... (even though it is expected he will lose them badly once all postal votes are counted). The idea of "doing the right thing" for fear of losing future votes might be naive (I hope not) considering what is at stake.

pretty much zero

You've just further jinxed USA political events.

I hope he does defeat it, but doesn’t seem nailed on yet.

Oh please no, it'll make him even more insufferable.
How he caught Covid and it was no big deal, just a bad cold, nothing to worry about. How he defeated it because he's strong, he believes, he prayed / all of America prayed for him, how it shows he was right all along that it's just a flu (kind of ignoring 200,000 extra deaths but hey...).

He'll be worse than ever.

No, it needs to be like that pastor who said Covid was sent by God to punish homosexuals who then caught it and died. That level of karma is needed. Harsh but true.

“The doctors didn’t want to give me these drugs but I made them, and now I’m better. See how clever I am!”

Ideally followed by the scene from Scanners.