Trump has COVID

[LiconaFan97]

News just broke.

https://apnews.com/article/virus-out...&utm_medium=AP

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, the president tweeted early Friday.

Trump’s positive test comes just hours after the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks came down with the virus after traveling with the president several times this week. Trump is 74 years old, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has now killed more than 200,000 people nationwide.

“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” Trump tweeted.

I wish them both a full recovery.

I honestly have no idea what he should do. Resign? Let Pence run for president instead of him? Ride it out?

[Starlight]

Dunno if I believe him, given he lies about everything else. Now he can conveniently skip further debates that he was likely to lose, garner some sympathy vote, then 'recover' and tell everyone he was totally right and that the virus is not bad and is just the sniffles.

[Andius]

Well now he is in the company of other heads of States who caught it.


Boris Johnson (UK), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Juan Orlando Hernandez (Honduras), and the one of my own country, Alejandro Giammattei (Guatemala). Who knows if Pierre Nkurunziza had it (Burundi).


As Starlight has said, quite likely he will make use of his own infection, much to be exploited. But no doubt his rivals will also make use of it (A sick leader is a vulnerable leader), he will be incapacitated to certain degree, and VP Mike Pence will have to step up his game, wether to uphold his mandate or (the Latin way , happened in Central America and Brazil, heheheh) undermine it.

[LiconaFan97]

Dunno if I believe him, given he lies about everything else. Now he can conveniently skip further debates that he was likely to lose, garner some sympathy vote, then 'recover' and tell everyone he was totally right and that the virus is not bad and is just the sniffles.

If he wants to get out of the second debate he'll have to stay off the campaign trail for the next two weeks. Seems like a gamble.

[Stoic]

Dunno if I believe him, given he lies about everything else. Now he can conveniently skip further debates that he was likely to lose, garner some sympathy vote, then 'recover' and tell everyone he was totally right and that the virus is not bad and is just the sniffles.

Yeah, we won't really know if he has it unless he dies.

Of course even then, he might just be someone who died with Covid, not because of it.

[Starlight]

If he wants to get out of the second debate he'll have to stay off the campaign trail for the next two weeks. Seems like a gamble.

Yeah, I don't think he'd be able to bring himself to stay off the campaign trail unless he actually had to. So I guess his actions in the next two weeks will tell us whether he actually has it or not. If he takes a break from campaigning, he has it. If he keeps doing campaign rallies, but uses "I Totally Have Covid" as an excuse to skip the debates... well.

[Reepicheep]

Yeah, we won't really know if he has it unless he dies.

Of course even then, he might just be someone who died with Covid, not because of it.

Trump has said that obese people who die of covid should be excluded from the covid death statistics, so it is my understanding that, according to US government standards, his death would not be accredited to covid under any circumstances.

[EvoUK]

Does he have symptoms, or is he asymptomatic? If the latter, no doubt he'd use it to again minimise the virus - though if he does become seriously ill (I'd point out here, I do actually hope he is OK, one wouldn't wish the virus on anyone) perhaps he could benefit from a surge of public sympathy, just as Johnson did here.

[Mountain Man]

I wish them both a full recovery.

I honestly have no idea what he should do. Resign? Let Pence run for president instead of him? Ride it out?

[shunyadragon]

Well now he is in the company of other heads of States who caught it.


Boris Johnson (UK), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Juan Orlando Hernandez (Honduras), and the one of my own country, Alejandro Giammattei (Guatemala). Who knows if Pierre Nkurunziza had it (Burundi).


As Starlight has said, quite likely he will make use of his own infection, much to be exploited. But no doubt his rivals will also make use of it (A sick leader is a vulnerable leader), he will be incapacitated to certain degree, and VP Mike Pence will have to step up his game, wether to uphold his mandate or (the Latin way , happened in Central America and Brazil, heheheh) undermine it.

All of the above including Trump ridiculed COVID-19, and did not use masks and did not social distance.

[Mountain Man]

All of the above including Trump ridiculed COVID-19, and did not use masks and did not social distance.

He never ridiculed it, and he does use a mask.

[Juvenal]

Dunno if I believe him, given he lies about everything else.

I believe Hope Hicks has covid. I believe the multiple reports that she was regularly meeting with him in the White House in close quarters without a mask. I believe the multiple reports that the White House was unpardonably lax in upholding social distancing standards. The president was obviously tested first, and if he was infected, and was wandering about freely without a mask, there will be a sequence of similar announcements about infected White House staff today and through the weekend.

White House offices are tighter than a nursing home. This has all the makings of a superspreader event.

The news about Trump dropped around 1 am, eastern. It's just shy of 8 am now.

This isn't over.

[shunyadragon]

He never ridiculed it, and he does use a mask.

Yes he did frequently ridicule the pandemic and wearing the mask, he held crowded campaign events without social distancing and masks. and no he rarely wore a mask.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-heads-flu-season-amid-pandemic-mocking-masks/story?id=72950584

Trump heads into flu season amid pandemic mocking masks, holding packed campaign rallies

Amid a raging pandemic, President Donald Trump has repeatedly choreographed a scene experts warn could lead to illness or even death: Thousands of supporters jammed together, mostly without masks, cheering for a candidate who mocks precautions against the novel coronavirus and has vowed to ignore his own health advisers.

Fighting for reelection amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Trump enters the final stretch of the election increasingly ridiculing and ignoring coronavirus-related restrictions while holding packed campaign rallies across the country. Health experts, meanwhile, warn a bad flu season colliding with the coronavirus could be a devastating double threat to the country.

Insisting on Thursday that the U.S. has now "rounded the final turn" -- just as the country approaches the once unimaginable milestone of 200,000 lives lost and the toll continues to climb -- Trump this week admitted to deliberately downplaying the threat of the virus publicly earlier this year even as he privately acknowledged the danger. The revelation came in audio recordings made by veteran journalist Bob Woodward for his book "Rage" set to be released next week.

© Copyright Original Source

The following goes into Trump's views on the pandemic:https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ts-coronavirus

more to follow . . .

[shunyadragon]

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-shares-tweet-that-says-masks-represent-slavery-and-social-death-2020-5

Trump shares tweet that argues face masks represent 'silence, slavery, and social death'

• President Donald Trump shared a tweet on Thursday that argued the mandated use of face masks represents a "culture of silence, slavery, and social death."
• "Masks aren't about public health but social control," a conservative columnist tweeted, linking to a Federalist piece. "Image of Biden in black mask endorses culture of silence, slavery, and social death."
• Trump retweeted that message to his 80 million followers, saying, "So many different viewpoints!"
• The president has refused to wear a face mask, even when he's unable to social distance from others, despite the CDC's recommendation and significant evidence that face coverings help contain the spread of COVID-19.

© Copyright Original Source

[Sparko]

I doubt Trump is faking it to get out of debates. Him being sick this close to the Election could severely impact his chances at the election. People will worry he might not make it, he can't campaign or hold rallies, it makes him look weak, etc.

But I guess we will see if Hydroxychloroquine works or not.


Conspiracy Corner: What are the chances that someone purposely infected Trump or someone near him in order to infect him right before the election?