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It’s been nearly 90 hours since the first assassination attempt on a president or former president in more than four decades, and we still don’t have any released information from medical professionals who have examined Donald Trump.
No press conferences, no interviews, no statements, no photos. Nothing beyond his wearing a comically oversized bandage in public.
This is weird, right?
He was definitely wounded. That much is clear. We all saw it. No doubt about that.
But why no medical information from those who examined him?
Remember: this is Donald Trump, who is nothing if not a pathological showman, utterly obsessed with visuals and narrative, his entire personality revolving around an unyielding craving for spectacle and drama and centering himself.
This is the same guy who entered the floor of the Republican National Convention to the tune of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A” wearing a medical dressing with a surface area approximately equivalent to Rhode Island.
And yet, he’s declining to pull all the other levers of public performance that would come from medical expertise.
Why hasn’t there been a press conference of physicians in white lab coats lined up to offer statements on the wound he suffered and his bravery?
Why hasn’t there been a network interview with the medical team who always travels with him giving a breathless recounting of the minutes after he was whisked away by Secret Service and presumably examined during the ride to Butler Memorial Hospital?
I’m sure we’ll get the oral history of what happened this past weekend from his inner cycle at some point, but will it include anyone with, you know, medical qualifications?
If this were anyone else, it wouldn’t stand out to me. If, say, Ted Cruz or Nikki Haley or Mike Pence survived an assassination attempt, I don’t think it’d be all that strange if we didn’t get much information from doctors. It’d be unusual, sure, but not enough to dwell on.
(Sorry, I meant if Mr. Pence were to survive a second assassination attempt.)
But with Donald Trump, this odd silence from anyone with medical credentials goes against everything we know about his public persona.
Remember when he contracted COVID in late September, 2020? That entire situation could have been handled with a few press statements and ongoing communications from the White House.
But that’s not what happened.
Although Trump required all medical professionals who treated him to sign an NDA (unnecessary given HIPAA) and we’re still told he was never in any grave danger, there was a press conference held in front of Walter Reed on Oct. 3rd in which an entire team of medical professionals took turns offering their expertise but basically said he was fine and had exhibited minor symptoms.
Weirdly, when a reporter asked if Trump had been administered steroids—a perfectly valid question—the presser was abruptly ended.
Later that day, photos were released of Trump “working” at Walter Reed in a conference room, signing what were later revealed to be blank pages. In other words, they were staged photographs.
The following day, we got another presser with a team of white-coat-clad medical professionals in front of Walter Reed. This time, they said he was “doing really well” and their ongoing examination yielded nothing of “any major clinical concern.” When asked about other findings—again, perfectly valid questions that should have been easy to answer—transparency disappeared. Doctors refused to answer basic inquiries.
Several hours later, Trump took a completely unnecessary and much-criticized drive out in front of Walter Reed to wave to supporters, so angering Secret Service officials that one anonymous agent told a reporter: “He’s not even pretending to care now.”
Former Secret Service Agent Joseph Petro then wrote a scathing op-ed blasting Trump for endangering agents with the publicity stunt: “Given the President’s covid-19 infection, this was a gratuitous and dangerous political exercise that needlessly exposed his Secret Service agents — as well as their families — to the potentially deadly novel coronavirus.”
And he’s right. It was a ridiculous bid for further attention from the most narcissistic person to ever sit in the Oval Office.
Everything Trump’s ever done has been geared toward consolidating and manipulating and exploiting press coverage, no matter the consequences. If there’s anything Trump has ever truly cared about, it’s the relentless preening of his public image.
Nothing else really matters.
So, here we have this horrific tragedy, perfectly primed for Trump to grandstand to his heart’s content (and he certainly does) but oddly enough, not when it comes to amplifying the medical professionals who treated him, the very aspect of all this with the greatest potential to cement his longing for a heroic narrative.
Folks, I say again: is this not all very weird?
Here’s another question: if President Biden had been in the same exact scenario, does anyone believe political press would let it slide that we haven’t heard from medical professionals?
That’s what I thought.
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