President Donald Trump boasted on Sunday morning that his recent fight with coronavirus has made him “immune” to COVID-19 and therefore a better president, speaking about himself in the third-person while declaring he’s in “very good shape to fight the battles.”
Calling into pro-Trump Fox News host Maria Bartiromo for the second time in four days, the president hyped up the recent statement from White House physician Dr. Sean Conley—who has admittedly lied about the president’s coronavirus diagnosis in the past—that claims he is no longer considered a transmission risk.
“Does this suggest you no longer have COVID, sir?” Bartiromo asked.
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“Yes. And not only that, it seems like I’m immune,” the president exclaimed. “So I can go way out of a basement, which I would have done anyway and which I did because you have to run a country, you have to get out of the basement, and it looks like I’m immune for, I don’t know, maybe a long time, maybe a short time. It could be a lifetime. Nobody really knows, but I’m immune.”
“So the president is in very good shape to fight the battles,” he added.
Bartiromo then said she wanted to give Trump the opportunity to “answer your critics,” noting that he is taking heat over his plan to hit the campaign trail for large public rallies this week despite his recent coronavirus diagnosis and the possibility that he’s still shedding the virus. Trump waved off any concerns, again pointing to his doctor’s statement while saying that the virus has actually made him look better.
“I beat this horrible, crazy China virus,” Trump proclaimed. “And it also gives you immunity. I mean, it does give you immunity… I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I’m in great shape.”
“I have to tell you, I feel fantastically. I really feel good,” he continued. “And I even feel good by the fact that, you know, the word immunity means something—having really a protective glow means something. I think it's very important to have that, to have that is a very important thing.”
Research on COVID-19 immunity after being infected is mixed, with studies showing the "immunity to other coronaviruses tends to be short-lived, with reinfections happening quite often about 12 months later and, in some cases, even sooner."
After defending the way he’s handled the pandemic that’s killed 215,000 Americans, claiming that he saved millions of lives with his administration’s response, the president then suggested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s push to create a “Commission on President Capacity” to give Congress the ability to use the 25th Amendment wasn’t meant for him.
“Well, I think she’s talking about Joe Biden because, to be honest with you, he’s the one that’s got the problem and, obviously, it’s obvious to anybody that watches him speak. He’s the one that has the problem,” Trump said about the Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump, meanwhile, insisted that he is no longer taking any medications to treat his coronavirus before again touting the expensive experimental cocktail of monoclonal antibodies that he’s repeatedly called a “miracle cure” for the virus.
“The medications that I took were standard, pretty much routine, other than the one which is the miracle, the antibody stuff, which is incredible how it works,” he stated. “And we’re going to be delivering that to hospitals. We’re waiting for the emergency use authorization. And we’re going to be delivering that to hospitals all over the country to take care and, ultimately, all over the world. Because it’s incredible.”
“This is really — I know people call it a therapeutic, but to me, it’s a cure,” Trump added. “Okay? To me, it’s a cure. I think it’s much more than a therapeutic.”
Bartiromo, meanwhile, interjected with what she hyped as breaking and blockbuster news about the former vice president’s health, implying that Biden’s condition is far more dire than previously believed.
“Mr. President, I have reported on Fox Business before that my medical sources have told me that Joe Biden had two brain aneurysms,” she breathlessly exclaimed. “Not one, but two brain aneurysms. I pray to God it’s not true, but my medical sources are solid on this, that he has had two brain aneurysms.”
“I hope he’s okay,” she continued. “Do you believe that he should be disclosing that, and are you willing to commit to telling us any issues that may have been in the past for you if he comes clean and tells us exactly what is the issue in terms of any mental issues that we need to know about? For example, these two brain aneurysms that I have reported on in the past?”
While the implication by Bartiromo was that these were fairly recent developments that Biden was attempting to keep under wraps, the fact of the matter is that the two aneurysms have been public knowledge for decades. The two aneurysms were discovered and treated in 1988 and Biden’s doctor recently noted that the ex-veep “has never had any recurrences of any aneurysms” and a CT angiogram in 2014 revealed he was clear.
Biden's campaign, meanwhile, openly mocked Bartiromo for seemingly suggesting the former VP was keeping this secret while citing "medical sources" about his past health issues.
Trump insisted that he personally has “no issues medically” and that his coronavirus battle was his first-ever, adding that it was “artificially induced by China.” He also called on Biden to “come clean” about the aneurysms before implying that the presidential hopeful is actually sick with coronavirus.
“And speaking about Joe Biden, if you look at Joe, or he was coughing yesterday horribly and grabbing his mask as he’s coughing and speaking and grabbing his mask and coughing,” he said. “And I don’t know what that was all about, and it didn’t get much press because the press doesn’t get that, but he was coughing yesterday quite badly, I must tell you, and it was not a good thing to watch. And as he’s coughing, he’s grabbing his mask with his fingers. So you may want to look into that too.”
That appeared to be an effort from Trump to distract from his own recent coughing fit during his interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
