The Daily - The Latest on the President’s Health

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

On Saturday morning, the doctors treating President Trump for the coronavirus held a news conference outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center — a show of strength, aimed at reassuring the American public that he was in capable hands.But instead of allaying concern, it raised questions, casting doubt on the timeline of the president’s illness and the seriousness of his condition. We speak to Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, White House correspondents for The Times, about the efforts to control the narrative, and pick through what is known about the president’s condition a month before the election.Guest:Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, White House correspondents for The New York Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: The president made a surprise outing from the hospital in an effort to show his improvement, but the murky and shifting narrative of his illness was rewritten again with grim new details.Dr. Sean P. Conley, who acknowledged that he had misled the public about the president’s treatment, has lost credibility with some colleagues.We have a timeline of the president’s symptoms and treatment.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. It was a weekend of conflicting information about the president's health. I spoke again with my colleagues, White House correspondents Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman. It's Monday, October 5th.

Maggie and Peter, the last time that we spoke to you late on Friday afternoon, the president was just about to board a helicopter for Walter Reed Medical Center, where he has spent the weekend. So let's talk about everything that has happened in the time since we last spoke. To start with, tell us about the decision to send the president to Walter Reed. What did the White House say at that point about why the president was going to Walter Reed. What did the White House say at that point about why the president was going to Walter Reed? So, Michael, on Friday, when the president went to Walter Reed, the statement said from the press secretary,

Kelly McEnany, that the president was going out of an abundance of caution. It was literally, this was a precautionary measure. And that they expected he would be there for a few days, quote unquote. And what they were saying was that the president had mild symptoms, cold-like symptoms. Low-grade fever, cough, sniffles, some chills. None of this was said officially.

That was just what we were learning from our reporting. But our information was that it was a mild case. And do we hear anything from the president directly? Well, we see him walk from the White House to Marine One. It's the first time we see him since he's had the positive test, the first time he's been in public in any view. And he's wearing a suit and he's walking in his own, but you can tell he's sick.

He's listless. He looks like he is pale. He doesn't have the normal energy. He flashes a thumbs up, but it's kind of perfunctory to the reporters. He doesn't stop and talk, which he often, almost always does. And within minutes of that... I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. They post a video on his Twitter account

of him addressing the nation, in in effect just before walking out. I think I'm doing very well, but we're going to make sure that things work out. And it's 18 seconds and doesn't say very much other than, you know, I'm here and I'm going to be OK. But it's meant to reassure the nation. I think the problem for them is, of course, he didn't look like he was doing well. But he was ambulatory. He was awake. them is, of course, he didn't look like he was, you know, doing well. But he was ambulatory. He was awake. He was lucid. And he obviously was meant to say, I'm in charge. And, you know, not just speaking to the country, but to our adversaries and allies around the world.

So thank you very much. I appreciate it. I will never forget it. Thank you. Okay, so what happens next? So the president spent the night on Friday and on Saturday, late morning. Morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. Behind me are some of the members of the president's medical team whom I'd like to introduce. A group of doctors treating the president came out of Walter Reed to address the pool reporters who were sent to Bethesda to hear what they had to say. Dr. Jason Blalock, infectious disease.

Dr. Wes Campbell, infectious disease. Dr. Jason Blaylock, infectious disease. Dr. Wes Campbell, infectious disease. Dr. John Hodgson, anesthesia. And it was led by Dr. Conley, who is Trump's main doctor. And Maggie, it felt like that scene, which I watched, was a very deliberate show of medical force. I think that's right, Michael.

I think it was meant to convey the significance and the breadth of the team treating the president. And to be clear, there are a number of top doctors who are working on the president's team. They brought in specialists from Johns Hopkins, for instance. So they wanted to, I think, convey the sense that he is getting significant care, important care, and care that people can trust. So, Peter, tell us about what happens during this news conference. people can trust. So Peter, tell us about what happens during this news conference. This morning, I'd like to start by first sharing that the president is doing very well.

Well, Dr. Connolly tells the world basically that the president is doing great. It should be clear that he's got plenty of work to get done from the chief of staff, and he's doing it. He says that he's up and around, he's in good spirits, he's working. And the president this morning is not on oxygen. The other doctors even say that... In fact, as we were completing our multidisciplinary rounds this morning, the quote he left us with was, I feel like I could walk out of here today. The president told them he felt so good that he didn't have to stay

if it was just up to him. Thursday, he had a mild cough and some nasal congestion and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving. And they give a few details, but not many, about the infection and the course since the positive test. The problem is, it's all very confusing, and it's conflicting with what the White House had told us before. Just 72 hours into the diagnosis now,

the first week of COVID, and in particular days seven to 10 are the most critical in determining the likely course of this illness. They refer to, for instance, the diagnosis being 72 hours earlier. Well, that would place it a day earlier than we had thought it would be. About 48 hours ago,

the president received a special antibody therapy directed against the coronavirus, and we're working very closely with the company to monitor him. They also referred to the president taking this experimental antibody cocktail 48 hours earlier, even though they had told us before it was only about 24 hours before. So immediately there are questions raised as to what is going on here. Are they admitting that this has been going on longer than they had told us before? Did they just get it wrong?

Doctor, what was the date of the president's last negative test? And then the questions start. I'm not going to get into all the testing going back, but he and all the staff routinely are tested. He is receiving notes. He has not received any supplemental oxygen. He's not on oxygen right now. That's right.

And there's a lot of questions about whether the president had been on supplemental oxygen. He has not received any supplemental oxygen? He's not on oxygen right now, that's right. And there's a lot of questions about whether the president had been on supplemental oxygen. He has not received any at all? He's not needed any this morning, today at all. That's right. And that's where it really goes off the rails, because Dr. Connolly is just sort of dancing all around it. If we just put you down on one thing, has he ever been on supplemental oxygen? Right now, he is not on oxygen. I understand. I know you keep saying right now, but should we read into the fact that he had been previously? Yesterday and today, he was not on oxygen.

Saying things like, he's not on oxygen now. Well, okay, that means he was on before, right? So he has not been on it during his COVID treatment. He's not on oxygen right now. Well, he wouldn't say that. And the sort of, you know, games playing and word parsing always simply made the situation even more confusing. Thursday, no oxygen, none at this moment. Yeah, and yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen. Press, thank you.

Thank you very much. Last part, thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, so what happens after this press conference? Watching this, of course, is Mark Meadows, the White House Chief of Staff. And I think even he found it a little too much because within a couple minutes, he walks over to the pool of reporters who were there to represent all of the press corps and asked to speak to them off the record.

And eventually gives them an assessment that sounds quite different than what Dr. Connolly had just said on camera. How different? Well, he tells reporters there that the president's vital signs were very concerning over the previous 24 hours, that in fact he wasn't out of the woods and that the next 48 hours were going to be critical to determining the course of his recovery. It sounded much more sober, much more, you know, measured, certainly, than what Dr. Connolly had just said. Clearly, you know, what he was doing was trying to pull back a little bit from the perhaps over-the-top optimism that was said on camera. Now, the problem for Mark Meadows is he didn't want to be identified, so he asked the reporters to call him a source who's familiar with the president's situation. But have 10. Okay, so who...

But what he didn't seem to realize was there was a live camera that had been recording everything. Hmm. You could hear on the video that ends up being posted online Meadows coming over to the reporter saying, hey, can we talk off the record? If we can go off the record with some of y'all and get away from the camera,

I'd be glad to. And why do you think Meadows would want to be unnamed? It felt like kind of an unexpected rollover. So you would expect that the White House would be the ones trying to put a more positive spin on it than the doctors. So why would they want to be doing the opposite and doing it off the record? Well, or at least doing it on background, Michael,

because the White House staff is well aware and Mark Meadows is well aware that the president does not want information about his health out there. And Mark Meadows was balancing the equities of what he thought the public should understand about the reality of the president's situation versus the president getting unhappy

with that information being out there. So he split the baby by going on background. So Achieva Sapp was willing to tell the public what he thought they needed to know, but not in such a way that he would then get a phone call from the president saying, what the heck did you just do? Correct. But as it happens, that's what happened anyway. Meaning the president learned exactly what Mark Meadows had done.

And was not very happy about it. So what happens? So the president learned of what happened, communicated that he was displeased, to put it mildly. And in short order, Mark Meadows was giving a rosier assessment of the president's condition to Reuters.

And Michael, this was an afternoon of backpedaling. You had Dr. Conley issue an additional memo short time after the briefing saying that he had misspoken on specific issues, particularly about the timeline of when the president was first diagnosed and how far into his condition and the treatment of the virus that he actually was. Meaning the 72 hours versus 36 hours reference. Correct. At one point, Dr. Connolly said, we're 72 hours into this diagnosis. And that would have put it at Wednesday before the president took a couple of trips, one to Minnesota and one to New Jersey. So Dr. Connolly saying, I didn't really mean that.

Correct. We still don't know the answer to the question of when the president first tested positive, but Conley said he misspoke. And Peter, what else do we see happening on Saturday afternoon? Well, then you start to see the president himself kind of get involved. I want to begin by thanking all of the incredible medical professionals, the doctors, the nurses, everybody. He had taped an 18-second video the day before going to Walter Reed, and he decides to tape another video that could be put online in the evening.

I came here, wasn't feeling so well. I feel much better now. We're working hard to get me all the way back. I have to be back because we still have to make America great again. He still looks kind of drained, which would be natural for anybody suffering what he's suffering through.

We're going to beat this coronavirus or whatever you want to call it, and we're going to beat it soundly. So many things have happened. If you look at the therapeutics. It is kind of a rambling talk. He talks about the campaign and he talks about how he wants to get back out there and win the campaign. He talks about his handling of the virus and he insists that he's handled it well. So I just want to tell you that I'm starting to feel good. You don't know over the next period of a few days,

I guess that's the real test. So we'll be seeing what happens over those next couple of days. But, you know, the larger message is I'm still here. I'm doing well. It's going to be okay. I'm not going anywhere. Specifically, the larger message is I'm still here. I'm doing well. It's going to be OK. I'm not going anywhere. Specifically, the United States, the outpouring of love has been incredible.

I will never forget. Thank you very much. Breaking right now, an update from President Trump's doctors just into Fox News. And then it's shortly after that that Mark Meadows goes on Janine Pirro. Joining me now to discuss this and more White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Mark, I suspect that you've been through a lot in the last couple of days. What is the statement from the doctors? Not as much as the President of the United States. And he gives two separate versions of reality.

Yesterday morning, we were real concerned with that. You know, he had a fever and his blood oxygen level had dropped rapidly. He gave an accurate version of what had happened on Friday with the president. He talked about his oxygen levels dropping. That was the first time any official had said that on the record. But he's made unbelievable improvements from yesterday morning when I know a number of us, the doctor and I, were very concerned. But then also talked about how well the president is doing and how speculation about transfer of power by the media is very unfair. And while that may make for good clicks on the Internet or make for a great hyperbole on TV, there was never a consideration and never even a risk of a transition of power.

And allies at the president and at the White House have gotten very upset with some of the news coverage related to whether the president can retain his powers. So Meadows was playing to that while also acknowledging that their portrait on Friday was not true. Mark Meadows, get a good night's sleep tonight. Thanks so much. So by Saturday evening, we don't really know exactly who is telling the truth

or what the exact state of the president's health is, but we do know the president wants to present an optimistic picture of his health. And that his chief of staff, having learned the president wasn't pleased with his portrait of the president's health, starts to present a more optimistic picture himself on Fox News. That's about where things stand on Saturday evening. And we're told, again, you know, we have to trust other people. We're told that he was actually feeling better on Saturday evening than he had been on Friday. And as he headed into a second night in the hospital, was just as concerned in some ways with the external perception

than he was his own condition at that moment. And what's your understanding of what that is about? I mean, why would President Trump, why would any president really try to mislead the public about their health? Does it have to do with politics or with the significance of the president being unwell when it comes to our sense of national stability or what? I think it's all of those things. I really do think, you know, there's a natural condition inside the Oval Office to want to maintain credibility in the political system, and that includes the international political system, and any weakness is obviously a drawback. So there is a natural tendency, even if it's unfortunate, to shade the truth in these kinds of circumstances. Now, of course, the difference is this is a White House

that has had a credibility problem on all sorts of things from day one, leaving a lot of people wondering what they can trust and what they can't. Right. And the other piece of that, that I would just add to what Peter said, this is a president who sees any sign of illness as a huge signal of weakness and who sees hospitals as dangerous and germy places. And so all of this is sort of Donald Trump's worst personal nightmare for a variety of reasons. We'll be right back. Okay, so Maggie, what happens on Sunday? So, Michael, Sunday, around the same time, 1130 in the morning, Dr. Conley comes back to a lectern with a microphone with a team of doctors. This time they're all wearing masks.

Morning, everyone. Since we spoke last, the president has continued to improve. And Dr. Conley offers more candid information than he did the day before. The president had a high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94 percent. Given these two developments, I was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness. I recommended to the president we try some supplemental oxygen, see how he'd respond. He says that the president's oxygen levels didn't de-drop on Friday and that he had had a quote-unquote high fever, and this all precipitated him being taken to Walter Reed Hospital later that day. Hmm. So a different account than going to Walter Reed out of an abundance of caution.

This is perhaps going to Walter Reed out of a kind of medical reaction to something happening to the president. That's correct. And Michael, look, it is important to bear in mind that he is still the president of the United States. He's not a normal, typical patient. So they're going to take more preventative measures with him than they would with someone else.

But this is the first thing that Conley establishes, is that the president was sicker than they were saying on Friday. And now we knew that for sure. Over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation. He makes clear then that the president had a second incident on Saturday where his oxygen level dropped. He was vague on whether they administered supplemental oxygen to him. It was a determination of the team, based predominantly on the timeline from the initial diagnosis, that we initiate dexamethasone. He let us know that the president is on a steroid,

which is being administered to quote unquote severe cases of COVID patients. He did not describe the president's condition that way, but he is taking the steroid, which is an anti-inflammatory and an immune suppressant. Are there signs of pneumonia? Are there signs of lung involvement? Were any damage to the lungs? Yeah, so we're tracking all of that. There's some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern. And he made clear that they are monitoring

the president's lung function, where he said there are expected findings in the scans and then didn't explain what the expected findings are or what that means. And if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is that we can plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow to the White House where he can continue his treatment course. He also said they might release the president as soon as Monday. He did not explain how those various facts fit together.

He said the president is doing better. Yesterday, you told us that the president was in great shape, had been in good shape and fever free for the previous 24 hours. Minutes after your press conference, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters that the president's vitals were very concerning over the past 24 hours. Simple question for the American people. Whose statements about the president's health should we believe? And then he was pressed on why he gave a very different portrait a day earlier. There was that momentary episode of the high fever and that temporary drop in the saturation. And he acknowledged that he had done that. I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had.

And he said that his goal was to try to be upbeat. I didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. And in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true. And so here I have it. And to not steer the course of the virus in the wrong direction. What did you make of that?

I must confess, I did not understand that set of words. What he meant was that he wanted Donald Trump to hear upbeat good news. And the White House communications director has since confirmed that that's what Dr. Conley meant. So the doctor is saying that he did not want to tell the public too much about the president's condition, that his oxygen had fallen, that he needed supplemental oxygen, that his fever had spiked because he feared that actually might make the president, as a recipient of that information, get sicker?

Correct. Remember, this is the president who has long subscribed to the Norman Vincent Peale school of positive thinking. That, you know, that simply being upbeat, being optimistic actually has an impact. And he has used that to explain over and over again why he has underestimated or undersold at least the severity of this pandemic from the start. So one way perhaps of understanding all this back and forth and conflicting information over the weekend is that the president genuinely believes that his health can be affected by a kind of positive framing of his health. Or that his health could be adversely affected by an accurate public framing of his health. Mm-hmm. So I want to talk for a moment about the other administration officials

and people in the White House around the president who have tested positive for the coronavirus. When we talked to you both on Friday afternoon, it was the president, the first lady, Melania Trump, Hope Hicks, his senior advisor, the chairman of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel. It was Senator Mike Lee of Utah, the president of Notre Dame. Who else has since tested positive? Well, since then, we've had, I think, Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who was the president's debate coach this past week. We've had Nick Luna, who is his former body man, his personal aide, who's now the director of Oval Office Operations. We've had

Senator Tom Tillis, I think was probably after we talked on Friday. We've had a number of reporters, including our own colleague, Mike Scheer, who was on the plane with the president following the Amy Coney Barrett event to hit the rally that followed that. Kellyanne Conway. We had Kellyanne Conway, that's right, who was no longer in the White House, but was part of that Barrett event as well. And what more do we now understand about how the transmission might have occurred? When we last talked, there was a lot of attention being paid to this Rose Garden event last weekend, the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme

Court, because so many of these figures had been present for that. So what more have we learned? Yeah, I think everybody is really now focused on that event. The White House Medical Unit is certainly examining that carefully. So many people who were there have come out of it with positive tests that, in fact, I think the mayor of D.C. said that would be the largest single super spreader event that has happened in the course of the pandemic in the city to this point. So that's an obvious source of the outbreak. And we had originally thought,

well, it seems sort of counterintuitive because while people weren't wearing masks and were not socially distant, they were outside, which is thought to be a safer way. What we didn't really focus on at first, I think, was the fact that a lot of those people came inside the White House afterwards. There was kind of a reception

in the diplomatic reception room and the pictures that have emerged have indicated just how close everyone was. There was even some hugging and certainly very close talking, no masks, no social distance, exactly the kind of circumstances that a public health expert would tell you not to do right now.

So also, in addition to these events related to Amy Coney Barrett's selection, there were rooms that the president was in with about a half dozen aides over several hours over the course of many days, from Saturday through Tuesday, where he was doing debate prep. And all of those people then went out and were still doing things after those sessions. Final question for you both. We don't know yet how these past few days may end up influencing voters and the outcome of the election. However, we have just gotten new polling that shows the state of the race just before all of this. We have just gotten new polling that shows the state of the race just before all of this.

And that polling showed that Joe Biden has never appeared to be doing better nationally. And the president is seen in these polls to have done poorly in the first debate. So, Maggie and Peter, how is the White House and how is the campaign thinking about what to do in these final weeks, given what has just happened to the president and given that polling? Michael, they're plowing ahead as if nothing has changed. You know, as it is, the doctors are talking about releasing the president as soon as Monday, which is really being driven by political considerations and less about where the president is physically, and also, frankly, the fact that the president hates being in a hospital and is bored. But they are sending out Mike Pence, the vice president, to do campaign events as soon as Wednesday.

They are hoping to have Trump family members campaign across the country. And they're still talking about the second debate as if it's a likely possibility. That is scheduled for October 15th. That's pretty soon. Hmm. And they think that they have an opportunity and they're not wrong to some extent to have the public see him as a sympathetic figure because he's sick. There is a history of politicians being viewed sympathetically when they are sick. The problem

is this White House is viewed with so little credibility on a number of issues, but particularly on its handling of the coronavirus, that that was always going to cut against them. Couple that with the incompetence and false portraits that have been depicted by this White House in the last few days, that doesn't help them either. But what they're hoping is the president will recover quickly and he'll be able to show resolve in the face of the virus. Maggie, Peter, thank you both very much. We appreciate it. Thanks, Michael. Thank you, Michael.

On Sunday evening, President Trump briefly left Walter Reed in his motorcade, loading into an SUV with two Secret Service agents to drive by supporters gathered outside the medical complex. The trip was immediately criticized by medical experts, who said it had endangered the agents in the vehicle and had violated medical protocols. We're getting great reports from the doctors. This is an incredible hospital, Walter Reed. Moments earlier, the president released another video update on Twitter about his experience. So it's been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID.

I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn't the let's read the book school. And I get it and I understand it. And it's a very interesting thing. I'm going to be letting you know about it. In the meantime, we love the USA and we love what's happening. Thank you. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. Right now, we can't live like we're back to the way things used to be. The Times reports that the state of Wisconsin is experiencing a widespread and uncontrolled outbreak of the coronavirus, prompting stern warnings from its governor, Tony Evers. We can't afford to act like things are business as usual. We have to get back to the basics in fighting this virus. The state has set a single day record for deaths and hospitalizations and has reached an alarming positive test rate of 20 percent. First and

foremost, I'm asking you to stay at home. Cancel the play dates and the dinner parties. Tell your friends and family members you'd rather hang out virtually because you care about them and you want to keep them safe. And... I'm going to be giving an update that gives me no joy at all. In fact, it pains me to be putting forward this approach that we'll need. But in some parts of our city, in Brooklyn and Queens, we're having an extraordinary problem. Fearing a second wave of infections in New York City,

Mayor Bill de Blasio is imposing severe new restrictions on nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens where positive test rates are surging. So the plan is to rewind in these nine zip codes, to rewind, to go back, to address the problem by using the tools that we know work, which is to ensure that non-essential businesses are not open and a variety of activities are not happening. Inside those communities, the city is closing all schools and non-essential businesses and forbidding both indoor and outdoor dining at restaurants.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.