Donald Trump leaves the hospital to wave to followers (photo: public domain) Donald Trump announced this afternoon that he will be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center having been hospitalized since Friday after testing positive for coronavirus and displaying symptoms. In his tweet, he says he’s “feeling really good” and Americans shouldn’t “be afraid of Covid.” He also notes “some really great drugs & knowledge” have been developed regarding the virus in the past few months. As has been reported, though, Trump has received several treatments that aren’t available to the average COVID-19 patient.
I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!
Don’t be afraid of Covid? Not every American has access to the top therapeutics and doctors with the most advanced equipment available to the President of the United States. You feel better than you did 20 years ago? That’s because of your dexamethasone high that resembles mania.
UNREAL: Trump tells his supporters that a deadly virus that required him to be flown via helicopter to a hospital to save his life is no big deal and says he feels better today after getting Covid than before. No words other than we must CRUSH HIM on Election Day!
Trump is right: Covid is no big deal as long as you have a helicopter that can fly you to a world class hospital where you will get 24 hour treatment by some of the nation's best doctors where they will prescribe you medication that the average American can't get yet.
The New York Times reports former Vice President Joe Biden holds a steady lead over Donald Trump in battleground state Arizona, which hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1996.
According to a new New York Times-Siena College poll Biden leads Trump 49 percent to 41 percent in the Grand Canyon state with just 6 percent of likely voters saying they were undecided.
The poll, which has a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, was conducted after Trump’s disatrous debate with Biden last Tuesday night but before the president’s coronavirus diagnosis was made public.
Trump won Arizona by 3.5 points in 2016 over Hillary Clinton. Of course, take this all with a grain of salt as the Siena College polls have tended to show Biden slightly more ahead than other polls in Arizona. That said, the New York Times’average of polls puts Biden leading in the state by 5 points. (graphic via the New York Times)
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany (photo via White House/public domain) Add White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to the list of Trump administration officials who have now tested positive for the coronavirus. On Sunday, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who helped Donald Trump with debate prep prior to last Tuesday’s presidential debate, also announced he’s tested positive. USA Today is keeping a running update on the Trump administration officials and guests who have tested positive for the virus in the past week. The list as of Monday morning: • President Donald Trump • First lady Melania Trump • Hope Hicks, senior adviser to the president • Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager • Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary • Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel • Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah • Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina • Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin • Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor who helped Trump with debate prep • Nicholas Luna, assistant and “body man” to the president • Three White House reporters • One White House staffer • Kellyanne Conway, former White House senior adviser • The Rev. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University (Jenkins was at the White House Saturday, when Trump introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee) Meanwhile, the New York Times reports Trump is growing more and more concerned his hospitalization due to COVID-19 is making him ‘appear weak.’ The Donald apparently wanted to be discharged from the hospital yesterday, but the doctors disagreed with that plan. So, instead, he jumped in an SUV with Secret Service members (putting them at risk in such closed, air-tight quarters), and took a loop around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to wave at followers. #selfishDonald Trump leaves the hospital to wave to followers (photo: public domain) The Times also reports that the fact that Trump was given a medication usually prescribed to seriously ill COVID-19 patients raised more questions about the severity of his condition.
Mr. Trump’s camera-friendly, morale-boosting “surprise visit,” however, may have masked the reality of his condition, and his seeming energy may have reflected the fact that he was given the steroid dexamethasone, according to medical experts.
Dexamethasone has been shown to help patients who are severely ill with Covid-19, but it is typically not used in mild or moderate cases of the disease.
Moreover, some medical experts said Mr. Trump’s trip out of the hospital was reckless, unnecessarily putting both hospital staff members and Secret Service agents at risk for a stunt. Others questioned the president’s statement in his video that he had met soldiers while at Walter Reed.
I just received word that I am positive for COVID-19. I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues who have reached out to ask how I was feeling in the last day or two. I will be receiving medical attention today and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition.
The president had wanted to be discharged from Walter Reed yesterday, but doctors weren’t okay with it. So the car ride became the compromise https://t.co/bwHty5jcaD
L-R Donald Trump, Joe Biden (screen capture) This new political ad from The Lincoln Project is for those political opinionators who criticize former Vice President Joe Biden for the times he might have tripped up when speaking in public. Reminder – Biden has shared publicly about his struggles with a lifelong struggle. Someone recently said to me, picking up the Fox News vibe, that “Joe’s so out of it he’s being led by the nose.” But when those peeps chatter on Biden, I wonder how they missed these Donald Trump moments that make me wonder, “Have you heard Trump speak?” The ads write themselves, folks…
Hat tip to kenneth in the 212 for finding this clever side-by-side ‘Wear A Mask’ reenactment of the iconic opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show brought to today’s COVID-19 times.
Dr. Sean Conley at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (screen capture)
On Sunday, Donald Trump’s medical team admitted they had given ‘an overly rosy description’ of Trump’s COVID-19 medical status on Saturday.
But there are still questions regarding when the president’s diagnosis occured, when he first developed symptoms, how severe those symptoms were and if he had been given oxygen at any point.
“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,” Dr. Sean P. Conley, the White House physician, said in a briefing with reporters Sunday.
The doctors said that Mr. Trump had a “high fever” on Friday, and that there had been two incidents when his oxygen levels dropped — one on Friday and one on Saturday. They said Mr. Trump received oxygen at the White House on Friday; they were not clear about whether it was administered again on Saturday.
Medical experts said that despite the relatively upbeat tone of the news conference Sunday, the details of his treatment and the fact that his oxygen levels have been dropping showed that the illness has progressed beyond a mild case of Covid-19.
Dr. Conley: “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction and in doing so it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.”
My Q: How would providing facts steer the course of Trump’s illness? — Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) October 4, 2020
On reluctance to provide more specific information on Saturday, Dr. Sean Conley says, “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction.” pic.twitter.com/i2IGYeK7Y3
Sanjay Gupta says doctors at Walter Reed are throwing “the kitchen sink” at Trump, feeding him 3 different “serious” medications, one of which is experimental in nature. He suggests this is far more serious than what Conley is letting on.
My friend Tom Viola, the Executive Director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, shares some very good news (which we all can use right now):
The Broadway Cares/Equity Fight AIDS fiscal year 2020 has ended and October 1 marks the start of a new beginning. The last six months brought with it a devastating shutdown, anxiety, isolation and tragedy. Yet it also allowed the heart of our community to shine brightly.
We close out fiscal year 2020 with remarkable news: Thanks to the generosity of this community – a community that includes all onstage, backstage and in the audience – we have together provided a record $18.1 million in grants. That’s up 22 percent over our 2019 grant-making.
That total includes more than $11.2 million to The Actors Fund to support their entire safety net of social services – from the HIV/AIDS Initiative and the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative to the Friedman Health Center, Addiction and Recovery Services and the Career Center. I am especially proud and happy that $11 million also includes $6.5 million for the Fund’s COVID-19 emergency financial support and $1 million for the creation of a new, essential program, Every Artist Insured.
In addition, more than $5 million was also awarded to over 400 grantees across the country through our annual National Grants Program. Food banks and health clinics, supportive housing programs and harm reduction services, serving millions of men and women, families of all variety and colors, diverse communities too often underserved and now also buffeted by COVID.
Finally, another $909,000 was awarded as emergency grants to organizations outside our theatre/performing arts family and annual grantees in the National Grants Program that reached out for help. Folks and organizations who at another time might have fallen outside our safety net of grant making. Now, as best we can, is not about “no.” Now is about trying to reach out as much as possible with the resources at hand. Resources that so many of you reading this have made possible.
This has been a truly collaborative accomplishment that literally saved lives, put food on families’ tables and kept friends and colleagues safely in their homes. Learn more at broadwaycares.org/2020grants.
We didn’t get to present this year’s Easter Bonnet Competition in April which, since 1995, has ended with the anthem “Help is on the Way.” So, David Friedman, who wrote the song, gathered Broadway stars who have performed the Bonnets finale in the past and an army of other voices – some quite familiar, some soon-to-be – to create a virtual rendition that we share at this start of our new fiscal year.
May we all embrace its message of health and hope. On Friday, October 23, my castmates from the national touring company of CATS (back in 1986) will be presenting our own special streaming event benefitting the Broadway Cares COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund. If you tune in, you just might get to see me swing my rehearsal tail a bit…Click here for details. But for now, let’s enjoy these world-class Broadway artists lift our hearts a bit 🙂
Happy World Smile Day from Snoopy Some news items you might have missed: • World Smile Day: Talk about ‘who can turn the world on with his smile?’ Snoopy (above) sends TGIF greetings to all. #HandsomeDog #DogsRule • The Advocate: A man was dancing with a female friend recording a TikTok video in Lower Manhattan on Saturday when an unknown assailant called him a homophobic slur and punched him repeatedly in the head. The assailant fled on foot, and the New York Police Department’s hate-crimes unit is investigating the incident as a bias crime. • Pink News: In a letter to USA Today’s political reporter Susan Page, who will serve as moderator for the upcoming vice presidential debate, 13 LGBT+ rights groups asked her to address queer rights, as it would “do our nation and community a disservice to exclude these issues as a part of the conversation.” • KIT212: Check out Kenneth’s lastest round-up of LGBTQ publications including DNA Magazine’s latest issue (below) featuring Ian Utterback on the cover. Ian Utterback covers DNA Magazine (photo: James Franklin) • USA Today: Newly revealed secretly recorded conversations with Melania Trump show the first lady expressing dismay at her role in decorating and promoting the White House during Christmas time, while she was being criticized for not doing more meaningful work. “I’m working my a– off with the Christmas stuff that, you know, who gives a f— about Christmas stuff and decorations but I need to do it, right?” Trump is heard saying. • Washington Post: Amazon said Thursday that nearly 20,000 of its U.S. employees had tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began. The retailer has faced harsh criticism as hundreds of workers and critics have said it hasn’t done enough to keep employees safe as they work in its warehouses amid a surge in demand to send items to shoppers across the country. • Twitter: File this clip of Donald Trump mocking Joe Biden for wearing a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic under “Didn’t age well.”
“I don't wear masks like him (Biden). Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen." – Donald Trump at Tuesday’s debate pic.twitter.com/0Sj6IR8eqP
Do you like ‘power play’ in the bedroom, or it all about being romantical for you when getting physical? That’s the question funnyman Michael Henry explores in his latest YouTube video, ‘Are You Into Power Play?’ While properly socially distancing on the patio with Henry and Tim (Kornbread), Todd (Darren Bluestone) posits the question and each of the trio definitely has their own take on personal dynamics when doing the ‘wild thing.’ Turns out that Todd is a dom – a dom bottom. “So, you’re an aggressive bottom?” asks Tim. Todd’s reply: “You think I go to the gym and work out just for nothing?” Tim loves being a dom top, and being a sub bottom, and sub topping, and dom bottoming….and, well, you get the picture. Henry, however, is not into power dynamics in the bedroom. He wants to have “the real you” when getting busy, not some role play. “I don’t want to go to dinner and drinks with a florist and then jump into bed with the executioner,” Henry announces. It’s an interesting chat on the idea of whether we need just the ‘flesh’ or the whole ‘fantasy’ during encounters of the physical kind. Hit the play button below.
