If the president is seriously ill, the public has a right to know about it. Unfortunately, the White House has created more questions than it’s given answers, leaving many to wonder what to trust. And the media, never slow to turn a drama into a crisis, has filled the vacuum with irresponsible speculation and sensationalism. The result has been confusion and chaos, with the truth elusive.
The public was told last Friday that President Trump would check in at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as a preventative measure. The White House statement suggested this temporary stay was unnecessary but was accepted “out of an abundance of caution.” This was plausible, for if Trump’s condition were to worsen suddenly, he could receive the best care immediately.
Then the story changed. His doctors briefed the public at a press conference on Saturday morning, but they became vague when asked about the treatments Trump received. When asked if he’d been given supplemental oxygen, Dr. Sean Conley refused to say. It turns out that Trump did receive supplemental oxygen before he even left for Walter Reed.
Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was caught contradicting the doctors in an off-the-record conversation with reporters, according to the Associated Press. Whereas the docs said Trump had been fever-free for 24 hours, Meadows said the president’s condition was “very concerning.” Trump admitted during a video posted on Sunday that he left for Walter Reed because he wasn’t feeling his best.
Naturally, the media ran with Meadows’s version, and doomsday scenarios ran amok, and calls for the 25th Amendment were heard once again, as they were (ludicrously) in the first months of the Trump presidency. The White House should have been much more candid about the president’s health, and news media should stick to facts rather than amplifying hypotheses.
Both institutions make things worse. When asked to give reporters an explicit timeline of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Sunday, “Yeah, I’m not going to give you a detailed readout with time stamps every time the president is tested.” But such a readout is necessary given the many contradictions so far. An accurate timeline would help people who were in contact with Trump and help the public understand to what extent Trump irresponsibly exposed others to the virus after learning his diagnosis. The evasiveness was striking, given McEnany’s previous boasts that Trump was tested several times a day.
The media have spread misinformation like wildfire. For example, the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reported on Sunday that the White House sent a campuswide note to staff encouraging them to telework if they felt sick for the first time. But White House staffers have been receiving that exact same note for weeks, according to emails obtained by reporters.
The White House has undermined its credibility for years and now provides misleading and contradictory information when clarity is needed. And news media have similarly eroded their credibility by pushing dramatic but false narratives because that’s what sells.
Trump was released from the hospital Monday night. We hope this indicates that the worst is over and Trump is recovering. Either way, his team owes the public a full accounting of his condition.
