Trump's drive-by stunt was branded 'insanity' by a Walter Reed doctor who said the president put lives of Secret Service agents at risk for 'political theater'
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apayne@businessinsider.com (Adam Payne) October 5, 2020, 6:59 AM
Reuters
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A Walter Reed doctor accused President Donald Trump of putting the lives of his Secret Service agents at risk for the "political theater" of a trip outside the hospital.
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Dr. James P. Phillips described the event as "insanity" that endangered the lives of Secret Service agents.
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Trump was filmed waving at supporters from a car he was sharing with security personnel for a trip outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
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The president described the trip as a "little surprise visit to some of the patriots we have out on the street."
President Donald Trump has been accused by a doctor at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center of putting the lives of Secret Service agents at risk for "political theater" after the president surprised supporters with a public drive-by on Sunday.
Dr. James P. Phillips, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University who is also an attending physician at Walter Reed, where Trump has been hospitalized, said "the irresponsibility is astounding" in tweets lambasting the president for sharing a car with Secret Service agents while still infected with the coronavirus.
Trump was filmed temporarily leaving Walter Reed in the back of a black car on Sunday evening after being admitted there Friday for treatment for the coronavirus.
Suited and wearing a mask, the president waved at cheering supporters on the street in what he described in a video statement posted on Twitter as a "little surprise visit to some of the patriots we have out on the street."
Phillips said "this is insanity" and said that under the official US coronavirus guidance the security personnel traveling in the car with Trump would need to quarantine for two weeks because of their exposure to the virus.
He tweeted: "Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential 'drive-by' just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity."
In a second tweet he wrote: "That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play."
Another doctor, Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington University's medical school, added in a tweet: "By taking a joy ride outside Walter Reed the president is placing his Secret Service detail at grave risk."
Reiner added: "In the hospital when we go into close contact with a COVID patient we dress in full PPE: Gown, gloves, N95, eye protection, hat. This is the height of irresponsibility."
A White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said the drive had been "cleared by the medical team as safe," adding that "appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it, including PPE," The Guardian reported.
In his video statement, Trump described his coronavirus infection as a "very interesting journey" during which he "learned a lot" about COVID-19. He was taken to Walter Reed on Friday shortly after it was made public that he had tested positive for the virus.
"I learned it by really going to school," he said in the video. "This is the real school. This isn't the 'let's read the book' school. I get it, and I understand it. And it's a very interesting thing, and I'm going to be letting you know about it."
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He just doesn't care how many people die of Covid!
!!!
At lease not the little people who serve him
Have you considered ‘herd immunity’ from the standpoint of a by-partisan [both ruling class sections] for-profit culling of the elderly and weak in order to redirect pensions and medical expenses into corporate coffers and for growing military expenditures?
You really make no sense.
Herd immunity when it comes to co-vid puts millions at risk.
Dear Tessylo:
God bless you.
The bipartisan nature of this anti-social offensive is not my doing.
If you honestly cannot see that I'm condemning herd immunity for precisely the reason you say [i.e., culling the elderly and weak] -- I can't help you.
What else can I say?
I could tell your original comment was indeed an anti-herd immunity stance (or rather anti-just letting the virus run rampant to achieve herd immunity), though I really only see one side of the partisan divide being so calloused as to not care about the some 6 million Americans who would have to die for us to reach anything close to it. Perhaps that's what confused Tessylo as most see those on the left, even what some might consider the wealthy "elite", as being compassionate and not hoping to profit off the millions of dead potentially culled from Medicare and pensions. On the right we often hear them ignorantly proclaim that "herd mentality" is what will overcome this virus, though most are just stupidly parroting what that dumb shit Atlas has claimed.
Save your blessings.
Your double speak on other threads and 'both sides equally bad' is confusing the hell out of me.
Plus, I don't need your help on anything. I'll just avoid you from here on out.
Herd immunity isn't going to happen until we get the majority of the population vaccinated. We can't rely on antibodies conferring immunity like chickenpox or measles
Tessylo:
Avoidance is unnecessary. There is no need of it.
A decade of social upheaval is emerging such as has not seen since the massive protests associated with WWI which nearly collapsed western governments.
If you operate on the premise of a binary world where all is black/white and one can be ONLY red or blue -- you face a most distressing future.
The world in general and the US in particular is undergoing a massive, massive shift.
This shift is not to the right; it is to the left.
You are looking at protests potentially numbering tens of millions. Worldwide, it will be scores to hundreds of millions.
The Democrat Party and organizations operating in its orbit [unions, Democratic Socialists of America, etc.] will be unable to capture/contain it.
Parties, constitutions, institutions of state, official processes [including elections] have seldom been less relevant.
So are you going to evolve and be a part of what is coming -- or will you try to hold on to a present already slipping from grasp?
There is simply nothing left. Dinosaurs did not adapt. So they perished. Sorry to break it to you like this -- but that is where you stand.
Thank-you, Dismayed Patriot. Good to hear from you!
I speak from the perspective that in any meaningful sense, no 'left' exists.
What is today called 'herd immunity' was in the past associated with vaccines.
Atlas is a quack proponent of quack medicine. What more can I say?
Substantially more science is needed, and this should be prioritized. I'm hearing that as yet very limited science is suggesting that 'immunity' acquired from COVID-19 itself may be short-lived. It is essential that we promote and listen to TRUSTED scientists and that decisions are made on the basis of social need and not political expedience or monetary greed.
Take care!
Avoiding your gobbledygook and nonsense is better for my blood pressure.
Toodles
Trump couldn't care less about the SS or anyone other than himself.
This should not be a shock, it's his MO.
If the president wanted to go anywhere (like back to the White House) wouldn’t these guys be driving him anyway? When he left the hospital today, he got in the same car with - I’m betting - the same agents and driver. They were going to be exposed this way regardless.
Should he try to minimize this exposure? Of course. But it was going to happen inevitably, and it could happen again.