What A Day - All The President's Meds

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Amidst rosy reports about Trump's condition, we also learned that he received multiple drug treatments over the weekend including dexamethasone, which is typically reserved for patients with severe cases of coronavirus. We look at what his diagnosis, along with other positive cases among Senate Republicans, means for the country and the Supreme Court confirmation process.Following a negative test on Friday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tested negative again on Sunday. VP Pence and Senator Harris have also tested negative and are planning to move forward with their debate this Wednesday, though their podiums will be moved six feet further apart.Only three US states are reporting a decline in new Covid-19 cases compared to last week. Wisconsin is having a major outbreak, with new daily case numbers doubling in the past two weeks.And in headlines: Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron releases audio recordings from Breonna Taylor Grand Jury, continued fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and James Bond kills movie theater chain.

It's Monday, October 5th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we are implanting a news chip to receive Trump medical updates at an increasingly rapid rate. Yeah, somehow mine got tuned to like a live update on how much fatter the fat bears are getting in Fat Bear Week, and I'm not changing it back. Yeah, mine's stuck on reruns of Johnny Bravo. And frankly, I'll take it. That's OK. On today's show, how President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis is affecting, well, everything, then some headlines. But first, the latest. I was trying to reflect the the the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. 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. You know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true. And so here I have it. He is, the effect of the matter is, is that he's doing really well. Yikes. Okay. So that was President Trump's physician, Dr. Conley, giving a briefing on Trump's health status Sunday morning, in which he tried to explain why he had been evasive and confusing in his briefing the day before about whether or not the president had ever been on supplemental oxygen. On Sunday, Conley admitted that the president did receive supplemental oxygen on Friday. We'll get into more on that in a second, but let's zoom out. A ton has developed in the past few days since we learned of Trump's diagnosis around 1 a.m. on Friday morning. We're going to try to parse through what we know and don't know at this current moment.

We are recording at 10 p.m. Eastern on Sunday night, and we certainly won't get to everything today. But to begin, there have been dozens of new positive COVID tests following the ones from President Trump and the First Lady, and those include three Republican senators, Trump's campaign manager, the chairwoman of the RNC, Chris Christie, and Kellyanne Conway. Many of the people who tested positive were at a Rose Garden ceremony for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and an indoor gathering where pictures show people in close quarters without masks. That event took place two Saturdays ago, but so many others might have been exposed in the days since. New Jersey's governor is urging people who were at a Trump

fundraiser on Thursday that Trump did attend to get tested and quarantine. Last night, Trump remained hospitalized at Walter Reed for ongoing treatment after briefly endangering Secret Service agents by driving around in a car with sealed windows to wave at fans outside the medical center. I don't know. So let's get into what we know about the kind of treatment he's been getting. Right. So this is from what has been reported and what Trump's doctors have said so far, which at times has been difficult to track and contradictory. Part of the confusion stems from a Saturday briefing by Dr. Conley, where he claimed the president was doing well and at that moment was not needing supplemental

oxygen. Immediately afterwards, though, a statement that began getting reported without attribution said that Trump's vital signs had been, quote, very concerning and that the next two days would be critical. That statement was later attributed to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Right. So it's a lot of confusion, including a whole back and forth about the timeline of Trump's diagnosis and course of treatment, which later had to be corrected. Right. And we still don't know when Trump's last negative test was. That's one of the remaining questions. Anyway, though, on the treatment front, one of the treatments Trump was given starting Thursday, according to his doctors, was what has been referred to as an antibody cocktail by the company Regeneron.

It hasn't actually been authorized for emergency use by the FDA, but the company's CEO told The New York Times that the president's staff reached out to get permission to administer it. It's a treatment that is meant to boost immune response, and the company recently claimed that using it sped up recovery time and lowered the actual amount of virus in nasal cavities of a small sample of volunteers. We've also been told that Trump was put on remdesivir beginning on Friday, and he was supposed to get a five-day treatment of that. The drug hasn't been approved by the FDA, but it was authorized for use for patients hospitalized with COVID. It basically makes it harder for the virus to replicate in someone's body. A study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who were given remdesivir recovered in 11 days as opposed to 15 days for those who took a placebo. But the study also said that it was most effective for people with severe cases of COVID who needed additional oxygen. Well, that was Saturday. Then Sunday,

we learned the president was also receiving dexamethasone. And all this comes as Trump and the White House are putting out images of the president working at Walter Reed, which for him is just coloring with a large permanent marker, along with personal video messages in which he says things like, quote, I learned a lot about COVID and, quote, we love what's happening. But let's get back to the dexamethasone treatment and what the doctor said yesterday. Right. So in the briefing yesterday, which was in our opening clip, Conley essentially cops to not giving a full picture of what was going on the day earlier, which is part of the disconnect that's happening right now. At one point in the press or two, Trump's doctor said that he could be discharged as soon as today. But Conley also said some

important things that some health experts have found concerning. For one thing, he said that there were two instances where Trump's oxygen levels dropped, one Friday and one on Saturday. And as we've talked about before, blood oxygen saturation has been a big factor in determining the health of COVID patients. And typically a good reading is at the very least 95 or higher. So Conley said that on Friday that Trump's reading was below 94. That's a metric that NIH classifies as being a sign of, quote, severe illness. And on top of that, Trump's doctor said that he had started dexamethasone, which has been recommended for patients with severe cases.

NIH, for example, said it is recommended for people who need a ventilator or supplemental oxygen, and use in cases of milder disease could even be risky. So we have a situation here where there's confusing information. The doctors and Trump are presenting a very rosy view, but his treatment and his age and his weight suggests to some in the medical field that things could be quite a bit more serious. It's possible that Trump's doctors are pulling out all the stops here, but also possible that the situation is worse than it appears. And the prognosis on this awful virus can shift very

rapidly as we've talked about on the show. For instance, there was a story on July 27th that Herman Cain's condition was improving after receiving oxygen, and it was announced just days later that he had passed away. Cain's situation was obviously different from Trump's. He was hospitalized for quite some time, but just bringing it up as an example of how things can shift so quickly. Yeah. Well, we'll of course be following all the updates, but let's get into what all this means, starting with the Senate and the Supreme Court confirmation process. Yeah. So first off, we know that two Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee already have tested positive. That's Tom Tillis and Mike Lee. They have said they plan to quarantine for 10 days, which gets pretty close to when those hearings have been scheduled for

October 12th, though McConnell suggested that the hearings could be at least partly remote. Yeah, so just to reiterate, the president is still in the hospital, and they're making plans as if they know what's going to happen even day to day, but also two weeks in the future. That appears to be it for the moment. And, you know, Democrats right now are saying that it's inappropriate to move forward for a lifetime appointment if some of the hearings have to be done virtually, pointing to McConnell's own stance earlier this year that Senate business had to be done in person. And then outside of this committee, Senator Ron Johnson, another necessary Republican vote to confirm Barrett, said that he also tested positive. And it's possible that other Republicans could

have been exposed to the virus as well. But not even a deadly infectious disease appears to be stopping McConnell's desire to go full steam ahead here. So while he pushed a delay in other Senate business until the 19th, he has said that the nomination process would still proceed on time with a floor vote set to take place before the election. So that's another developing part of all this. We'll keep an eye on. But Akilah, on top of all this, there is an election happening right this very minute. How is this all playing out there? Yeah, I mean, it was such a whirlwind of a weekend that it's easy to forget that we're in the final month of the presidential election with debates scheduled for the next three weeks. But here we go. As far as debates go, the vice presidential one scheduled for Wednesday night in Salt Lake City is still scheduled to happen as planned

with new precautions in place, like moving the podiums to 12 feet apart after they were just six feet apart. I don't know. I mean, what the hell? Like, I'm not in the business of giving strategy advice to the Trump administration. But after last week's chaotic debate and somehow the biggest news story of Trump's presidency this past weekend, it's really unclear what they even expect to gain from the objectively less charismatic Pence going up against skilled debater Senator Kamala Harris. Since, you know, he's the leader of the national covid response. And so far, he's led the president to a hospital bed. It's also wild because Pence has a known exposure to the virus, though he has, and so far he's led the president to a hospital bed. It's also wild because Pence has unknown exposure to the virus, though he has tested negative so far,

and he would be breaking the 14-day quarantine guidelines from his own CDC to do the debate. I'd call it, you know, like do as I say, not as I do, but honestly, there's just been so little guidance, it just seems like random recklessness. And as far as the next two debates scheduled for the presidential candidates, Trump's attendance is obviously uncertain.

Again, not sure what they think they can even gain at this point. Yeah, I mean, the basement is seeming like the best option for everyone. And to that point, how has the Biden campaign responded to all of this? So the Biden camp has pulled all of their negative ads against Trump, and they vowed to keep campaigning, wishing the president and the first lady well. But Trump's team hasn't at all considered changing their messaging strategy and kind of glibly sent an email about President Obama being a liar within hours of Obama tweeting his well wishes to Trump. So all of this has just been truly astonishing. And Biden, who may have been exposed by any number of Trump's family members and staffers at the debate last week, has tested negative for COVID three times since the news broke. So his campaign schedule remains unchanged. Those tests were twice on Friday and once yesterday, and he's going to continue to be tested. And they've said that they will release

the results of every single test. Right. And so zooming out here, the rest of the country is still dealing with the pandemic. How is that going right now? Yeah, it's still not going so great. Aside from the president, thousands of other Americans are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19. Only three U.S. states are reporting a decline in new COVID-19 cases, which is not surprising, given that there's still no federal strategy in place and schools and sports are back before any scientific guidance recommends it. Those three states are Texas, Missouri and South Carolina. Everywhere else is up compared to last week. Wisconsin in particular is having a major outbreak, unfortunately, with daily case numbers

doubling in the past two weeks to nearly 3,000 new cases a day. And in New York, where things were really starting to turn around and stay under control, they're back into double-digit deaths from COVID in a single day. Hopefully that trend goes back towards zero. But in any case, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a new strategy of closing businesses and schools in nine different neighborhoods that have had a recent rough go of the virus. The nine zip codes throughout Brooklyn and Queens have large Hasidic populations and have had positivity rates above 3 percent and some as high as 8 percent in recent days. The plan, which would go into effect on Wednesday, still needs to be approved by Governor Cuomo. But that's the latest for now. It's Monday, WOD Squad.

And for today's Temp Check, we're talking about a movie that's taking theaters by storm. It is Hocus Pocus from 1993, which was doing surprisingly well at the box office on Friday after Disney re-released it for Halloween. The movie is playing at under 3,000 cinemas, but that's all it takes in COVID times. It made more money this weekend than everything but Tenet. So giddy, spooky season is upon us. The whole country is turning into a Halloween store. What are your top scary movie wrecks? First of all, love Hocus Pocus.

That's probably in the wrecks. I think, oh, I have three, if I'm allowed to do three. When I was younger, the witches scared the living fuck out of me. Like the part, not to spoil it for people but like at this point if you haven't seen it whatever the part where the kid is in the tree and the witch is on the ground with the snake and is like trying to coax him out of the tree hated that really did not like it uh then my second would be scream because it's a lot of fun uh also you know scary in parts has like one of the coolest openings of movies maybe ever.

And then for a weird one with a creepy score that's also really good, Suspiria, the original, not the Dakota Johnson version. Honestly, I've only seen Scream out of those two, or I guess three out of those three. So yeah, I can definitely co-sign on Scream but yeah what's so great about Suspiria? Suspiria is just like a weird Italian like it's very like operatic and it's like these these like dancers are in this house and there's like a weird like ghoulish thing that's killing them it's very cheesy and it has this like weird score from I

think this like strange metal band yeah um it's got an interesting vibe it's this like weird score from I think this like strange metal band. It's got an interesting vibe. It's definitely like not like American movies at all for better or worse. But same question for you, Akilah. You're putting this list together. What are the wrecks? Three or more. Let's hear it.

Yeah, this is a good question. So yeah, I guess I can co-sign Scream. I'm not super into scary movies at all. And I think that people who know me know that. So, you know, I could do a list of movies that scared me enough that, like, I had nightmares. Like, definitely all the paranormal activities. Oh, yeah. Scream, the one through four.

All of the Final Destination films. Oh, my God. That one, Insidious, where the guy's just like a red monster who looks like Darth whatever. Some Darth character. Yeah, that's the one. I hate all of those. So like, they're all just scary and I don't like being scared. So I would just recommend Rocky Horror. Let's all watch Rocky Horror, The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Those are also really good. Rocky Horror is an excellent Halloween vibe. It's like right in the middle ground of perhaps spooky, but mostly just a lot of fun. Yeah, I hope that the drive through movies start to have like live Rocky Horror where you can just throw things out of your car like and participate

like we used to. Yes, I feel bad for the people that have to clean that up. But you know what? Maybe worth it. Maybe you can help after you buy your ticket. That'd be a good way to get back. Exactly. Well, just like that way to get back. Exactly. Well, just like that, we have checked our temps. Stay safe, stay spooky, and we'll be back with another temp check tomorrow. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. 15 hours of audio from grand jury proceedings in Breonna Taylor's case were released to the public last Friday. Here are some of the key takeaways there. An investigator with the office

of Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron told the grand jury he didn't know of a formal plan beyond a sketch on a whiteboard drawing for the officers who raided Taylor's apartment. Officers were briefed minimally on the location for less than two hours, and Taylor wasn't considered a threat. The grand jury was provided with two conflicting accounts of what happened before police entered the apartment. That of the police, who say they identified themselves before ramming the door off its hinges, and that of Taylor's boyfriend, who says that they did not. And that latter account is supported by 11 out of 12 witnesses. Missing from the audio released to the public were the prosecutor's recommendations about what charges should be brought. Attorney General Cameron said that was because they don't constitute evidence,

but it also adds credence to the idea that Cameron is trying to deflect blame for the decision. Yeah, well, there's a federal investigation, so fingers crossed for that. Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a disputed border territory continued to escalate over the weekend. Recent tensions between both countries and their conflicting claims over the Nagorno-Karabakh region have led to the worst fighting the area has seen in years. News reports say that missiles have been launched from both sides, though both countries deny the charges. The Red Cross also warned that civilians were being killed on both sides. Turkey became more directly involved with the conflict after reportedly supplying Azerbaijan with military drones and advisors. Armenia's prime minister reached out to the U.S. government for support in the battle, but the White House was preoccupied with Trump's recent COVID-positive

status. Many countries, including the U.S. and Russia, have asked both sides to agree to a ceasefire. The NFL is experiencing a case of extreme bubble envy after seeing multiple players test positive for coronavirus over the weekend. Patriots quarterback Cam Newton was the first member of his team to test positive, and an unidentified member of the Kansas City Chiefs tested positive as well. They were set to face off yesterday, but their game was postponed to today pending negative COVID tests. Five members of the Tennessee Titans also tested positive over the weekend, bringing that team's total to 18 players and staff last week. Per ESPN, the breadth of the Titans' outbreak has led the NFL and the NFL Players Association to investigate whether they

followed COVID safety protocols or had implemented their own rules like try to avoid breathing directly into each other's mouths for more than 10 minutes per hour. Oh, God. James Bond has defeated his toughest enemy yet. He's a wealthy arms dealer who was transformed by a freak accident into a global movie theater chain. Cineworld is considering temporarily closing all their theaters in the UK and Ireland, plus hundreds of their regal cinemas theaters in the US after the makers of the latest James Bond movie announced on Friday that they were delaying their release. The film is called No Time to Die, and it will push nearly five months to April 2021. Hopefully by then people will be able to hear the title without hyperventilating and trying to jump through the projector screen. If you're surprised that a large

company like Cinemark can rely so much on just one movie, you're underestimating the size of the Daniel Craig industrial complex. Other tentpole movies like Dune and Pixar's Soul remain scheduled for 2020, but those could still get delayed or move to streaming platforms. It's very true. I don't expect to see a movie ever again, frankly. Fair. And those are the headlines. Okay, quick heads up before we go. Today is the last day to register to vote in several states. They are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Hawaii also has this deadline today, but if you live there, you can also register on election day when you vote. Yeah, definitely make sure you're

registered if you live in any of those states. And you can do that by going to votesaveamerica.com, where you can also double check your registration, figure out your plan to vote, and find state-specific deadlines and rules. That's votesaveamerica.com. Go there right now. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, help us cope with our bubble envy, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just summaries of scary movies before you watch them like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And dismantle the Craig Industrial Complex. We don't need it. We've grown beyond it now. That's enough, Dan.

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.