Asked repeatedly whether Trump had been on oxygen at any point, Dr. Sean Conley gave at least eight variations of answers.
Conley told reporters that the president's cardiac, kidney and liver function were all normal, and he was having daily ultrasounds and lab work. He also provided information on the president's heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels, saying Trump had an oxygen saturation level of 96%, within the normal range for a healthy person.
But he would not comment on whether the president has any lung damage.Asked when the president last tested negative for COVID-19, Conley again did not provide specifics. "I'm not going to get into all the testing going back, but he and all the staff routinely are tested," he said. Conley initially said that the president was"72 hours into the diagnosis," but then said Trump had been diagnosed Thursday evening. After the briefing, Conley issued a statement saying that he had intended to say"day three" into the diagnosis.National security experts have also raised the issue of transparency. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday that Trump's COVID-19 hospitalization raises serious national security concerns and that adversaries should be expected to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities.extremely important to keep the public fully informed about what is happening"It is particularly critical that information about the president's health is presented openly. The tendency is 'don’t panic the public, don’t tell the full story.' But I think it's essential that the public know exactly what is going on," Panetta said. "I really urge the White House not to pull any punches. Have the doctors stand up and make very clear news with regards to the president’s heath. It is the public's business to know what's going on." The steady flow of lies and misinformation from the White House have eroded the administration’s credibility leading to a crisis over what to believe about President Trump’s health, said David Lapan, the former spokesman for Homeland Security, the Defense Department and Marine Corps. In the early days of the Trump administration, Trump compelled his spokesman to exaggerate the size of the crowd at his inauguration. "This is a president who has squandered away his credibility from Day One," Lapan said. “Now when it’s needed most, it’s not there. Can you trust anything that comes out of this administration?” The stakes could hardly be higher, Lapan said. U.S. adversaries can be expected to exploit perceived gaps in the military’s ability to respond to provocation and allies wonder if American forces can be relied upon to back them up.In any event, it may be too late to recover trust, he said. "Credibility does not come back quickly. We’re paying the price at the most dangerous time. Can you trust anything that comes out of this administration? Are you lying to me now, or were you lying to me then? How can I trust what they say?"The Trump administration is not alone in its reticence to reveal information about the president's health. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan all struggled with health issues while in office. But a lack of clarity from the president's doctors amid a pandemic has several new ethical implications, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at NYU School of Medicine. "The nation absolutely must have accurate information. That's partly because there are people out there who may have been exposed," Caplan said."There are other lives at risk – and their families and friends – and anything less than full disclosure is unconscionable." Americans are facing big decisions about who to vote for in the upcoming election, and many may be wondering why the president is receiving an experimental drug, Caplan said. Some may be inclined to try it too, he said. When it comes to high-profile elected officials like the president, the normal rules of doctor-patient confidentiality should not apply, said Caplan, who has long been a proponent of having an independent assessment of the president's physicals. "We've never really set that expectation, so the doctors who treat politicians still think their first duty is to the patient, not the public," he said."But I think that's not accurate due to the nature of the influence and power that they hold."
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