Trump endangers Secret Service with joyride because he's bored

Trump forced Secret Service to drive him in an SUV to see a few well-wishers outside the hospital because he was tired of being inside and watching the news, the Washington Post reported.

By Emily Singer - October 05, 2020

Donald Trump’s decision to risk the lives of his Secret Service agents by forcing them to drive him in an unventilated SUV to wave to crowds gathered outside his hospital suite was a reaction to being bored and upset at media reports, the Washington Post reported Sunday night.

Doctors were aghast at Trump’s COVID-19 parade, with Dr. James P. Phillips — an attending physician at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump is currently hospitalized — calling Trump’s move “unnecessary” and “political theater.”

“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack,” Phillips tweeted. “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.”

Trump’s move to leave his hospital room despite being actively infected with the deadly coronavirus came after he released a video saying he now “understands” the virus because he experienced it firsthand.

“I learned it by really going to school — this is the real school,” Trump said in a video posted to Twitter, as deaths from the virus approached 210,000. “This isn’t the let’s-read-the-book school.”

Of course, forcing Secret Service agents into an enclosed space such as an SUV despite still being actively infected with the coronavirus is against every best practice to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.

The World Health Organization had been warning of the deadly virus since January, when it declared a global emergency. And public health experts have been saying for months that the virus is deadly and that social distancing and mask-wearing — which Trump has refused to practice — can help stop its spread.

Ultimately, Trump’s willful flouting of public health guidelines — which helped turn the White House into a coronavirus hot-spot — could further imperil his already sinking reelection chances.

An ABC News poll released Sunday found 72% of voters believe Trump did not take the “risk of contracting the virus seriously enough.” Another 72% of voters said Trump did not take “the appropriate precautions when it came to his personal health,” according to the survey.

Trump is also now sidelined from the campaign trail in the final month of the election.

And the fact that he is actively infected with the coronavirus should keep him from holding events, or possibly even attending the next presidential debate — scheduled for Oct. 15 — if he is not coronavirus free at that point.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Emily Singer