President Trump’s condition improving, plans to leave Walter Reed Hospital by Monday

By Yehudit Garmaise

 President Trump’s condition has “improved,” according to White House physician Sean Conley, but the president experienced significant oxygen drops on Friday and Saturday and was given dexamethasone: a steroid that is typically reserved only for severely ill coronavirus patients, the Washington Post reported today.

   Trump’s doctors said he has had no fever since Friday morning, however, and could be discharged as early as Monday.

     In a video President Trump posted on Twitter from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., today, the president was standing up, dressed in a white shirt, black jacket without a tie, and looked and sounded healthy, as he said he is “getting great reports from the doctors,” whom he thanked along with the “nurses and everybody here.”

 As Walter Reed, where Trump has been since Friday after testing positive for coronavirus, is one of the most prominent military medical centers in the U.S., Trump said that he “has gotten to meet some of the soldiers and the first responders: What a group!”

  After hundreds of Trump supporters gathered outside on Rockville Pike St. for a “get-well” rally outside Walter Reed to show their concern and support, Trump said on his Twitter video that he was planning “a little surprise for some of the great patriots we have out there on the street, and they have been out there for a long time. They have Trump flags, and they love our country, and so, I am not telling anybody but you, but I am about to make a little surprise visit.”

Sunday afternoon, a small motorcade including a masked Trump who sat and waved from a black SUV, drove slowly past his crowd of supporters.

   James P. Phillips, M.D. tweeted that he did not approve of Trump’s leaving his hospital suite to drive to give his fans a wave and glimpse of himself looking healthy, by saying, “This is insanity.”

   However, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that “Appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the President and all those supporting it, including PPE.”

   “The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.”

(Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)