The White House Correspondents’ Association complained on Sunday afternoon that journalists were not invited on President Donald Trump’s short drive outside of Walter Reed Medical Center, calling it “outrageous.”
The statement came as journalists complained about Trump allegedly not wearing the right kind of mask during the drive while others called for him to face criminal charges and to be removed from power.
White House Correspondents’ Association President Zeke Miller, who is a reporter for The Associated Press, issued the following statement:
It is outrageous for the president to have left the hospital — even briefly — amid a health crisis without a protective pool present to ensure that the American people know where their president is and how he is doing. Now more than ever, the American public deserves independent coverage of the president so they can be reliably informed about his health.
The most notable hit on Sunday came from left-wing Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, who tweeted at least 34 times about Trump taking a short drive outside of the hospital before returning.
Rubin suggested using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump and called for him to be criminally prosecuted for “reckless endangerment” and “assault.” Rubin also suggested that Trump was willing to kill his supporters and that the Republican Party was not the “pro-life party.”
White House physician Sean Conley, D.O., gave additional details on Sunday about Trump’s overall health condition, saying:
Since we spoke last, the president has continued to improve. As with any illness there are frequent ups and downs over the course, particularly when a patient is being so closely watched 24 hours a day. We review and debate every finding, compare it to existing science and literature, weighing the risks and benefits of every intervention. It’s timing, as well as any potential impacts a delay may have.
Over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation. We debated the reasons for this and whether we’d even intervene. It was the determination of the team, based predominantly on the timeline from the initial diagnosis, that we initiate Dexamethasone.
I’d like to take this opportunity now, given some speculation over the course of the illness the last couple of days, update you on the course of his own illness.
Thursday night into Friday morning the president was doing well with only mild symptoms and his oxygen was in the high nineties. Late Friday morning, when I returned to the bedside, president had a high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94%. Given these two developments, I was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness. I recommended the president we try some supplemental oxygen, see how he’d respond. He was fairly adamant that he didn’t need it. He was not short of breath. He was tired. He had the fever. That was about it.
After about a minute and only two liters, his saturation levels were back over 95%. Stayed on that for about an hour, maybe, and it was off and gone.
Later that day, by the time the team here was at the bedside, president had been up out of bed, moving about the residence with only mild symptoms. Despite this, everyone agreed the best course of action was to move to Walter Reed for more thorough evaluation monitoring.