MSNBC host Joy Reid called President Donald Trump a “sick elderly man” on Tuesday and compared him to Herman Cain, who died of Covid-19.
The leftist host questioned the president’s triumphant return to the White House on Monday – just 72 hours after he was admitted to Walter Reed hospital in Maryland.
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“He was trying to look like a tough guy but he looked, quite frankly, like a very sick elderly man with a lot of makeup on,” Reid said. “That’s what he looked like to my eye.”
Although Trump, 74, and his physician Dr Sean Conley said he is feeling better, Reid compared him to Cain – a Republican candidate in the 2000 presidential election – who was the same age when he lost his virus battle.
The late GOP member tested positive for Covid-19 after attending a Trump rally in Tulsa this summer without a mask and was diagnosed on July 2.
Reid noted that he was said to be recovering between July 10 and July 27 but Cain died on July 30.
“He kept saying he was feeling better. I’m sure at some point maybe his doctor, I don’t know, sent him home, thought he was fine but he ended up dying,” she said during the show.
“Donald Trump made a video saying, ‘People should not be afraid of the coronavirus.’
“That tweet was considered so egregious that even Facebook and Twitter took down his statement because it is false.”
“How much danger is Donald Trump in – a few days into his coronavirus prognosis – and how much danger are his staff in?” Reid asked her panelists.
MSNBC’s medical contributor Lipi Roy answered that “he’s in the most infectious period right now. He should be in isolation, which means none of these photo-op nonsense gigs.”
Reid also echoed comments made by MSNBC journalist Rachel Maddow, who said Trump was “struggling to breath” when he greeted photographers from the South Portico terrace on Monday.
Reid said he “appeared to be laboring in his breathing” and “put his hand on his diaphragm, like he was wincing in pain.”
The day before, Maddow had described Trump’s home from hospital as an “unnerving spectacle of the president really, visibly appearing to struggle for breath.”
She accused him of staging “a kind of performative return that may have tried to be a sort of triumphant ‘I beat the virus’ thing with Marine One landing right next to the White House.”
However, Conley has since released a statement saying Potus “feels great” after contracting the deadly virus on Wednesday.
The medic said Trump was fever-free for more than four days, symptom-free for over 24 hours, and hasn’t required supplemental oxygen since being hospitalized.
Trump has said he will participate in the October 15 debate against Dem rival Biden as the White House battles an outbreak.
Trump did urge Americans to be cautious and careful as he prepares to get back on the campaign trail with just four weeks to go until the US presidential election.
“Get out there, be careful,” he said in a video posted shortly after his arrival in DC.
“We have the best medicines in the world, and it’ll all happen very shortly. And they’re all getting approved and the vaccines are coming momentarily.”
The infection has spread rapidly around the White House since his top aide Hope Hicks fell ill last week, with First Lady Melania Trump and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany both testing positive.
