Trump rips off mask as he arrives back at White House after checking himself out of hospital

Still-contagious president defiantly heads back to White House as virus sweeps through his West Wing staff

Donald Trump essentially checked himself out of a military hospital on Monday for his return to the White House, just hours after his doctor said he is improving but "may not entirely be out of the woods yet”.

The ever-defiant president landed on the White House’s South Lawn and headed for the Truman Balcony, where he removed his mask despite being contagious. 

After a brief moment of time, having given the thumbs-up to the cameras, the president then turned and entered a room full of aides, still without his mask.

The president walked out of Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre outside Washington under his own power and headed for Marine One for the short flight to the executive mansion on a picturesque autumn evening. Mr Trump and his doctors signalled most of the day the decision was in large part political just 29 days before election day.

His flight over Washington’s still-leafy Rock Creek Park ended a three-day stay in hospital triggered when his blood oxygen levels suddenly dipped on Friday to a level that worried his military physician, Sean Conley. But as he left the hospital, the president and his physician sent questionable messages and refused to provide crucial information about his actual condition. A reporter who was outside the military medical facility asked Mr Trump if he is a “super spreader” of the virus; he did not reply.

“He’s back,” Mr Conley said of the president even after leading a midday briefing with an unsolicited assessment that Mr Trump is not yet on a path to a full recovery.

The president also declared himself on a speedy course, ignoring the fact he has spent three days being given powerful anti-Covid drugs and an aggressive steroid. Mr Trump decided to return to the White House even though he is taking the latter because his medical team is concerned about inflation in his lungs.  

Medical officials on Monday declined to answer reporters’s questions about when was the last time the chief executive tested negative for coronavirus. There is unresolved murkiness about when he first learned he might have the sometimes-deadly virus, with aides still not saying definitively that Mr Trump had not tested positive before he flew to his New Jersey resort on Thursday afternoon for a fundraiser that featured 200 ticketed guests and resort workers.

Even as he experienced trouble breathing and twice had his blood oxygen levels dip so low he received supplemental oxygen on Friday and Saturday, and needed those powerful medications, the president remarkably returned to his Covid-sceptical messaging.

“Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” he tweeted about four hours before he left the hospital. That social media post dashed any hopes from Democrats and some in his own party that contracting the virus would cause him to take it more seriously.

Mr Trump’s return to the executive mansion could put West Wing aides and residence employees at risk because he appears to be in about the fifth day of his sickness. Experts say he likely remains very contagious. Some top aides, like press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced on Monday they too have tested positive.

Mr Conley and his team, however, were unable to describe just how much of a risk the president will pose to those around him and inside the mansion’s living and work spaces. Jason Blaylock, one of the medical team members, told reporters he is working with laboratories in the Washington area to develop diagnostic testing that could help the White House Medical Unit determine how likely the president is to pass the virus to others.

That comment was an indirect admission the president is choosing to return to the White House knowing there is a chance he could get others sick with a disease that has, so far, killed 210,000 people in his country.

‘Far, far from over’

As the president left behind the optics of being an ill and hospitalised commander in chief, his general election rival, Joe Biden, was campaigning in Florida, pursuing its 29 electoral college votes as a new poll put him up 2 points there. (Political experts note that margin is within the survey’s margin of error, saying the race is a dead heat in the Sunshine State.)

“I hope the president’s recovery is swift and successful,” the former vice president said at an event in a gym in Miami’s Little Havana, where a small audience was socially distanced and wearing masks. By contrast, at Mr Trump’s pre-diagnosis campaign events with massive crowds, most of his supporters opted against masks and were closely packed inside and around airport hangars.

“But the nation’s Covid crisis is far, far from over,” Mr Biden said. “Since the president was in the hospital, since Friday, more than 100,000 more people have been diagnosed with Covid. Cases and deaths are climbing in many states.”

In fact, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has climbed in 34 states compared to the number of new cases one month ago.

The White House and Trump campaign are mostly ignoring such data, opting instead to focus on an allegedly recovering president they are now touting as a Covid commander-in-chief who is uniquely qualified to combat the very virus he again downplayed on Monday.

“[Trump] has experience as Commander-in-Chief. He has experience as a businessman. He has experience now fighting the coronavirus as an individual,” Erin Perrine, a campaign spokeswoman, told Fox News. “Those first-hand experiences, Joe Biden, he doesn't have those.

“Those first-hand experiences,” she added, “are what are going to get President Trump four more years.”