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In a tweeted video, the president said on Sunday, he “learned a lot about Covid.”

At least he didn’t call it the China Flu.

He didn’t acquire this wisdom on Zoom; he learned it while being a sick patient at Walter Reed Medical Center. “This is the real school,” said Trump. “This isn’t the ‘Let’s read the book’ school.”

Of course not. Why read a book?

But the president said on Sunday, he gets it.

“I understand it,” Trump said, “it” being the disease. “And it’s a very interesting thing, and I’m going to be letting you know about it.”

Let’s hope so, but he sounds delusional. The president now believes that having Covid has suddenly made him the best possible Covid expert in the world, enough to counter all the experienced doctors, virologists, and epidemiologists. (Maybe even Scott Atlas?)

Trump’s hope is that the Sunday video he tweeted will convince us that everything he’s said and done about the virus to date has been part of an educational journey. One that’s claimed close to 210,000 lives. Nearly 1,000 deaths a day. Seven million cases in the U.S. 40,000 cases a day.

For those numbers, he’s earned an F to date. But now he claims a “Gentleman’s C”? Amazing that after more than 20,000 lies and misleading statements in the last four years, Trump still thinks he has an ounce of credibility.

He feels his sickness gives him first-hand knowledge that allows him to spin you for sympathy.

Remember, this is the same Trump who told Bob Woodward he knew how bad the virus was in February, and then did nothing to prevent our march to 210,000 deaths.

He downplayed it all then. And now? He’s “up-playing!”

SAME OLD TRUMP
The only conclusion to draw after the weekend is Donald Trump is the same “in sickness and in health.”

Secretive. Duplicitous. Obstructionist.

Whether it involves his personal tax returns, his scandalous relationships with women not his wife, his potentially unethical business dealings while president, the business enterprises he’s been sued for as a private person (Trump University), his college grades, his draft record, or anything else, Donald Trump remains Mr. None of Your Business.

But as president, it’s all of our business. Especially to Asian Americans who’ve been subjected to his xenophobic characterization of the virus that has brought on thousands of racist attacks on our community.

With a month to go before the election, Trump’s health is of utmost importance to all of us. And yet the president has been anything but forthcoming during his bout with Covid-19.

After the nation was first alerted of his positive test on Thursday night, we know Trump was sick enough with a fever and other symptoms to be helicoptered into Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday night. We saw it on TV.

We know he had at least two drops in oxygen levels that made his doctors feel emergency use of an experimental, unapproved monoclonal antibody drug was needed. (The drug was tested on animals–hamsters–and its value to humans may be even more limited than at first thought.)

Trump’s also has been given Remdesivir and another drug, dexamethasone, a steroid used for seriously ill patients with Covid.

We got that much because Trump’s doctors finally admitted to some specifics after a Saturday press conference that showed the White House doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, evasive and spinning a Trump-made tale. It was so bad, Trump’s chief of staff released, first on background then on the record, that the president’s condition was more serious than appeared, with no clear path to recovery.

When you’re president, you really can’t just tell us what you want us to hear. We need regular updates especially with Trump, a 74-year-old, weighing 244 pounds, in high risk groups due to age and weight.

We don’t even know how this respiratory illness is impacting the president’s lungs. We do know what his lack of Covid policies have done to the country. What has Covid done to him?

Instead of honesty, we get videos. The one on Saturday showed a haggard and fatigued Trump. The shorter video on Sunday has Trump telling us he has learned a lot about Covid.

And then he goes out for a quick drive-by to wave to the Trump “patriots” gathered outside the hospital.

Photo-op therapy?

So Trump’s a changed man having been a Covid patient? I don’t buy it.

And now, even though it could take ten days to see how the virus develops, his camp is talking about a possible Monday release.

Trump should be resting, trying to get better, not playing manipulative games for political advantage.

We all want him to get well. That’s the truth. Voters need the truth too. A second term is already considered a lame duck term. At the helm shouldn’t be a lame duck.