Donald Trump’s health is worse than the administration is letting on, Don Lemon believes.
The former CNN anchor said on Tuesday’s episode of The Daily Beast Podcast that the president’s bout with Covid in the fall of 2020 should make everyone skeptical of what the White House is saying.
“I think that he is sicker than the administration is letting on… and by evidence only: history is the evidence,” Lemon told host Joanna Coles.
“Because I remember being on the air and being the first to report that Donald Trump and Melania Trump had COVID. And when Donald Trump walked out of the White House to walk to Marine One and then go on to the hospital, he looked terrible, but he was sicker than we knew, and no one told us about it.”
After Trump tested positive and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his head physician, Dr. Sean Conley, didn’t reveal to the public that he was being given supplemental oxygen. Around that time, Conley and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also gave conflicting public statements about Trump’s health, with Meadows’ being more concerning. Additionally, the White House was cagey when pressed on when Trump had last tested negative.
With that history in mind, Lemon said, “there’s nothing that leads me to believe that they would be more transparent about it now.”
The White House announced in July that Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), which makes it difficult for blood to return to the heart. The president has been seen with swollen ankles and with bruising on the top of his right hand, which the White House has linked to frequent handshaking and aspirin usage.
Lemon said that “it’s just natural” for signs of aging to be more noticeable in the 79-year-old.
“So, I think he’s probably sicker than they’re letting on,” he said. “And I wish there was more transparency because this administration seems to be more concerned about Joe Biden’s alleged cognitive issues, and he’s not even in office anymore. And I think they should be more transparent about Donald Trump’s issues.”
Lemon added that he would like to see the topic addressed with more transparency during White House press briefings, and with more persistence by the press corps.
“I can’t watch live. I can only watch the clips because it’s so infuriating and frustrating because they don’t allow people to push back in a significant manner. They want to move on quickly,” he said of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“She’ll say, you know, ‘Joanna,’ and you’ll ask a question, and then she just sort of either lies about it or obfuscates or deflects, and then she goes, ‘Bob,’ and you’re like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!’” Lemon said.
“If you aren’t allowed, Joanna, to follow up on something that’s very important, I think the next journalist should say, ‘Why don’t you answer my colleague’s question?’” Lemon continued. “But they don’t do that. So I think they should be pressing her about a lot of things about Donald Trump’s health.”
In response to a request for comment, the White House again provided a statement from disgraced former White House physician to the president Ronny Jackson, who asserted that Trump “is the healthiest president this nation has ever seen.”
“I continue to consult with his current physician and medical team at the White House and still spend significant time with the President,” added Jackson, now a Texas congressman. “He is mentally and physically sharper than ever before.”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung also told the Daily Beast: “Joanna Coles and Don Lemon are two dips–t losers who have been fired from every job they’ve held. None of those two morons are capable of telling the truth, because they suffer from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their pea-sized brains.”
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The post Why White House Is Hiding Truth About Trump’s Health: Don Lemon appeared first on The Daily Beast.
