CNN host Brian Stelter attacked President Donald Trump for putting lives at risk to take a drive to wave to his supporters outside his hospital room at Walter Reed.
According to Dr. James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University, every person in the car with Trump must now quarantine for 14 days, according to CDC guidelines. Trump then made an about-face and turned back to Walter Reed.
Speaking to CNN, Stelter explained that it was the “worst kind of reality TV stunt” that Trump could employ.
“This is not Ronald Reagan waving from the window to reassure the American people,” Stelter said, recalling Reagan after he was shot in 1981. “This was Michael Jackson holding a baby over the balcony recklessly. It put others in danger, and it’s emblematic of the Trump years. The photos the White House has been releasing, the videos, we have to show them because they’re the only evidence we have of the president’s condition, but they’re propagandistic, that’s, unfortunately, the situation we’re in.”
He noted that the press pool is supposed to travel with the president to ensure the people get news about him, but they were told to go home ahead of the stunt.
“That’s a grievance breach of protocol, and they’re saying it’s outrageous for the president to have left the hospital without a protective pool present to ensure the American people know where the president is and how he’s doing,” he explained. “The people deserve coverage of the president so they can be informed about his health. Also, if the president was feeling so well, why didn’t he walk outside in the fresh air rather than cooped up in the car. That’s not a comfortable place for anybody to be in when there’s a COVID-positive patient. He could have walked out and waved to the public. He put secret service people in danger.”
See the video below: