Misleading medical reports, backtracking doctors and a confused timeline: How a paranoid Trump's fear of leaks has left his own team in the dark about severity of his condition - and how exposed THEY are to Covid-19
The White House has been thrown into chaos and confusion in the wake of Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis as staffers are left in the dark about the president's condition and potential risks to their own health.
Over the past four days Trump's team has offered a number of conflicting reports surrounding the president's illness, sowing doubt about when he tested positive and how severe his symptoms have been.
Meanwhile the virus has continued to spread through the White House, infecting at least 12 people who work there by Saturday night, as staff try to stay informed via the media in the absence of transparency from top brass in the Trump administration.
One senior White House official lifted the lid on the state of the 1600 Penn in an interview with Intelligencer on Saturday, decrying how paranoid attempts to avoid leaks have not only failed, but are threatening the health and safety of staff.
'Ninety percent of the [White House] complex most certainly learned about it in the news, as has been the case ever since,' the senior official said.
'There are reports that COVID is spreading like wildfire through the White House. Since this whole thing started, not one email has gone out to tell employees what to do or what's going on.'
The White House has been thrown into chaos and confusion in the wake of Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis as staffers are left in the dark about the president's condition and potential risks to their own health. Pictured: Marine One leaves the White House on Friday as Trump is transported to Walter Reed National Military Hospital for treatment
Over the past four days Trump's team has offered a number of conflicting reports surrounding the president's illness, sowing doubt about when he tested positive and how severe his symptoms have been. Pictured: Trump delivers an address in a Twitter video on Saturday night
The official said that the majority of staff has received little to no reliable information, about the president's condition or about anything else regarding the outbreak.
'I think most of it is paranoia about leaks,' they said, 'yet ... the leaks continue.'
Outside the White House, confusion erupted on Saturday when Trump's team of doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center offered a vague but sunny update on his health that was then contradicted by the president's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
'This morning, the president is doing very well. The team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. He's been fever free for 24 hours and we are cautiously optimistic,' Trump's personal physician Sean Conley told reporters outside Walter Reed.
Conley's depiction was far more hopeful than one put forward by Meadows, who spoke to a press pooler on background immediately after the briefing ended.
'The president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We're still not on a clear path to a full recovery,' Meadows said.
The briefing raised more questions than answers as Conley declined to say what temperature Trump had when he had a fever or whether he was on oxygen.
Conley also said that the president was '72 hours into the diagnosis', indicating that Trump could have tested positive as early as Wednesday - not Thursday night as the White House had claimed.
If he was 72 hours into his diagnosis, that would mean Trump was positive a day after the presidential debate with Joe Biden and positive during a Minnesota rally Wednesday and a fundraising event in New Jersey attended by 100 people Thursday.
Conley and other senior officials spent the rest of Saturday backtracking, claiming that the doctor misspoke when he said '72 hours' and that he actually meant 'day three'.
Trump's personal physician Sean Conley (pictured) offered a vague update on his condition outside Walter Reed on Saturday morning, saying the president is doing 'very well'
After the presser Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (pictured) told a pool reporter: 'The president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We're still not on a clear path to a full recovery'
Trump announced his diagnosis just before 1am Friday, hours after it emerged that his top aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive after she started feeling sick on Wednesday while traveling to Minnesota with the president for his rally.
The White House sought to keep Hicks' diagnosis under wraps and apparently didn't inform its own staff despite the possibility that they could have been exposed to her.
Questions over the timeline are concerning both within and outside the White House because the president had traveled to multiple states and was exposed to countless people in the days before his diagnosis was announced.
On Wednesday the president appeared before a crowd of hundreds of people, who were notably not socially distanced, at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota.
He spoke for 45 minutes, far less than his usual performances of more than an hour.
At the rally he was seen throwing red MAGA caps into the crowd.
Then he fell asleep on Air Force One in contrast to normally watching television and tweeting.
The following day Trump traveled to his golf course and resort in Bedminster, New Jersey for an indoor fundraiser with about 100 attendees.
Trump reportedly met about 19 high-dollar GOP donors in private and seemed 'lethargic' at that fundraiser.
The contact tracing process is underway in New Jersey and Gov Phil Murphy is urging anyone at the Bedminster event or around it to self quarantine and get tested.
Organizers of the fundraiser have sent out an email to attendees informing them of Trump's diagnosis, urging them to get tested if they experience symptoms.
It is unclear whether Trump caught the virus directly from Hicks, who traveled with him Tuesday for his debate against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Cleveland and on Wednesday to Minnesota.
By Friday evening the president was flown on Marine One to Walter Reed hospital for a several days long stay to undergo treatment 'out of an abundance of caution' after reporting symptoms of fever, cough and congestion that the White House described as 'mild'.
Rumors that officials were downplaying the severity of Trump's condition began to swirl on Friday night as an anonymous White House official claimed he was hospitalized because he was having 'trouble breathing'.
On Wednesday the president spoke before a crowd of hundreds of people, who were notably not socially distanced, at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota
It is unclear whether Trump caught the virus directly from Hicks, who traveled with him Tuesday for his debate against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Cleveland and on Wednesday to Minnesota. Hicks pictured with White House advisor Jared Kushner and White House social media director Dan Scavino walking to Air Force One Wednesday
Trump's travels from September 25 until the day he announced his diagnosis
Dr Conley said Saturday that he was speaking '48 hours after' Trump received his first dose of Regenron's experimental polyclonal antibody cocktail. That would mean on Thursday morning.
And another doctor – Brian Garibaldi – said: 'About 48 hours ago the president received a special antibody therapy directed against the coronavirus. We are working very closely with the company to monitor him in terms of that outcome. Yesterday evening he received his first dose of IV remdesvir.'
Then in a statement Conley said Regenron was first administered on Friday – but not when. That means two doctors have now said the White House has misspoken.
Conley repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether the president had ever been placed on supplemental oxygen, merely stating that he wasn't on it at the time of the briefing.
Conley has worked with the Trump as a patient for years and the president has veto over any aspect of revealing his medical information, such as when and how he was diagnosed, his use of oxygen and his maximum temperature.
The physician said Trump's medical team was still assessing the president to determine when he can be discharged from Walter Reed but asserted that he was on the mend.
Both Conley and the White House maintained that Trump's hospitalization was precautionary, rather than a sign that his case was growing more serious.
However, Intelligencer spoke to Panagis Galiastatos, a pulmonary and critical-care physician at Johns Hopkins who has treated more than 100 COVID-19 patients in his hospital's ICU, challenged that suggestion.
Galiastatos said that the details about Trump's remdesivir treatment indicated that he is suffering from a 'moderate' or 'severe' case of COVID-19.
The doctor said he suspects Trump 'probably had COVID-19 around Wednesday', noting that patients are understood to be contagious 'several days before' showing symptoms.
If that's the case, it could mean that Trump was positive during Tuesday night's debate with Biden. Both Biden and his wife Jill tested negative after the news of Hicks' diagnosis.
Meadows contradicted Conley's assertion that Trump was doing 'very well' in his comment to the press pool immediately after the Walter Reed briefing.
The chief of staff apparently did not intend for his message to reach the wider press pool - but after it did, he appeared on Fox News on Saturday night and admitted that Trump's condition had been 'very concerning' on Friday.
Multiple sources also claimed that Trump had been placed on oxygen prior to being admitted to Walter Reed, which the White House confirmed later on Sunday evening.
The president addressed the nation himself in a video from the hospital on Saturday night, saying he was feeling better while acknowledging, as Meadows had said, that the next two days are critical.
'I came here, I wasn't feeling so well, I feel much better now. We’re working hard to get me back. I have to get all the way back because we still have to make America great again,' Trump said at the start of Saturday's video.
'We've been so proud of it but this was something that’s happened and it was something that happened to millions of people all over the world and I've been fighting for them, not just in the US, I'm fighting for them all over the world.'
The White House released this photo of Trump working at Walter Reed on Saturday night
The president added that people 'criticize me' for boasting about cures but that the therapeutics he's taking are 'like they're miracles coming down from God so I just want to tell you that I'm starting to feel good'.
'We're going to beat the coronavirus or whatever you want to call it and we're going to beat it soundly,' he said.
'I don't know the next period of a few days, I guess. That's the real test so we'll be seeing what happened over those next couple of days.'
Trump also said that his wife Melania, 50, was doing better than he was, joking: 'As you've probably read, she's slightly younger than me, just a little tiny bit.'
The president is said have been upset over the confusion surrounding his condition after Meadows appeared to undermine Conley's optimistic report.
But equally frustrated are those working in the White House, who are only getting updates via the media amid fears that they could be the next staffer infected with the virus.
Speaking to the senior White House official, Intelligencer placed the ordeal in a broader context, asking how Americans could trust the Trump administration's portrayal of the coronavirus nationwide given the chaotic handling of this internal outbreak.
'I can't,' the official replied.
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