Donald Trump’s desperation to leave hospital shows the dangers ahead

The president’s carelessness about others’ safety shows he will do almost anything not to lose in November

The desperation that has driven Donald Trump to leave hospital prematurely and theatrically pull off his mask on the White House balcony while in the throes of coronavirus infection gives some measure of how dangerous the next four weeks will be.

Many students of Trump’s life and career have warned that he would be prepared to sacrifice anyone – even those closest to him – to spare himself the humiliation of a one-term presidency, but even they surely could not have anticipated how literal that sacrifice would be.

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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tests positive for coronavirus – live

A fascinating dispatch from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair, who cites “two Republicans briefed on the family conversations” in reporting that Donald Trump Jr is worried by his dad’s car-ride-and-tweet-storm response to being hospitalised with Covid-19:

‘Don Jr has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,’ a source said. Don Jr is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. ‘Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,’’ the source added.

One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. ‘They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,’ a source close to the family told me.

…Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr, insisted on working even after his Alzheimer’s disease advanced in the 1990s … Every day Fred Sr would go to the office in Brooklyn and they would give him blank papers to sort through and sign. The phone on Fred’s desk was set up so that it could only dial out to his secretary. “Fred pretended to work,” the family friend said.

A new Times/Siena survey has Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona, a traditionally conservative state-turned presidential battleground.

Biden leads Trump 49% to 41% in Arizona, with just 6% of likely voters saying they were undecided. He is buoyed by his lopsided support among Hispanics, women and young people. The candidates are effectively tied in their support among seniors, a critical voting block in the state that has soured on Trump amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

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How Covid is accelerating the fight for Black voting rights in the US – video

Donald Trump’s election campaign in 2016 targeted nearly 3.5 million Black Americans to deter them from voting, and the battle for the right to vote is just as important in 2020. Kenya Evelyn travels to Florida where it's the Democrats' most loyal bloc, Black women, who are also bearing the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak, with its impact accelerating the fight for voting rights. From mail-in ballots and early voting, to felon disenfranchisement, Black voters are wielding their power to demand more from Democrats ahead of November


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Donald Trump drives past supporters after saying he has ‘learnt a lot about Covid’ – video

After releasing an upbeat video message from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, US president Donald Trump left hospital to wave to his supporters in a motorcade. Throngs of flag-waving Trump supporters gathered outside the hospital where Trump was being treated for Covid-19. The move was criticised as insanity' by one Walter Reed doctor. In the video message Trump thanked the medical team, saying: 'The work they do is just absolutely amazing.' He added that his time in hospital has been 'a very interesting journey' and that he has 'learnt a lot about Covid'. 

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Sean Conley: who is the Trump doctor whose updates are raising questions

Physician’s press briefings leave medical experts, analysts and the public searching for the truth as to how sick the president really is

Donald Trump has often boasted of surrounding himself with “the best people” and the medical skills of Dr Sean Conley, the personal physician now charged with steering the US president back to health through his encounter with Covid-19, have never been called into question.

Related: Trump's steroid Covid treatment adds to confusion over health

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Trump 14 points behind Biden a month before election, new poll shows

Trump’s advisers scramble to find a strategy for final weeks, saying ‘it’s important that our campaign vigorously proceed’

Donald Trump’s beleaguered campaign team woke up to another setback on Sunday as the president began his second full day in hospital: a new national poll showing their candidate 14 points behind his challenger Joe Biden with less than a month until the election day.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey indicating a 53-39% advantage for the Democratic party’s nominee injected urgency for Trump’s advisers already scrambling to find a strategy for the final weeks of the campaign until 3 November.

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Revealed: Trump-linked consultant tied to Facebook pages warning election will cause civil war

Network run by fake news-publishing father and son spreads word to Trump supporters they should prepare for violence in November

A militia-promoting father and son duo of fake news publishers and a Trump-connected social media consultant are linked to pages which promote the idea of an American civil war with material presented in a way that appears to be an effort to sidestep Facebook’s fact-checking system.

Comments on their Facebook pages and other materials obtained by the Guardian show that some rank and file Donald Trump supporters are enthusiastically receiving the message that they should prepare for violence against their perceived political enemies in November.

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Trump’s New Jersey event showed perilous neglect for his staff, supporters – and himself

Why did the White House allow a fundraising event to go on after one of Trump’s closest aides tested positive for Covid?

On Thursday afternoon Donald Trump held a roundtable of 19 top Republican donors at Bedminster, his 36-hole golf course in New Jersey, where he vented his frustrations about how his push for a rapid vaccine against Covid-19 was being undermined by the deep state.

According to a description of the meeting recorded on video by one of the donors present, “the president said that the approval for vaccines has been slowed down for political reasons by people who wanted to hurt him”.

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Coronavirus: ‘I’ll be back, I think I’ll be back soon,’ says Trump as Victoria records 12 new cases – live

A couple of follow ups to those White House photos of Trump Signing Things.

The photos released by the WH tonight of the president working at Walter Reed were taken 10 minutes apart at 5:25:59 pm and 5:35:40 pm ET Saturday, according to the EXIF data embedded in both @AP wire postings that were shared by the White House this evening. pic.twitter.com/EzeqIkGdf7

ZOOM: @realDonaldTrump appears to be signing his name to a blank sheet of paper in this photo. pic.twitter.com/xlNX24CXn4

In the UK, millions of employees preparing to work from home this winter will face a collective hike of almost £2bn on their energy bills, and tougher working conditions, with only a “pittance” in compensation from their employers.

Half the UK’s workforce is likely to work primarily from home over the coming months as they help to contain the spread of the coronavirus, and may see their winter energy bills rise by a fifth as radiators and boilers are kept running through the day.

Related: Working from home in UK over winter ‘will add £100 to fuel bills’

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‘I feel much better’: Trump releases first video message from hospital room

President says next few days will be the ‘real test’ as he battles Covid-19

Donald Trump released a new video message on Saturday evening saying that he is “doing well”, his wife Melania is “doing very well” and the next few days will be the “real test” after he was taken to hospital with Covid-19.

“I came here, wasn’t feeling so well, I feel much better now. We’re working hard to get me all the way back,” Trump said from behind a desk in his suite at the Walter Reed hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Trump films first message from hospital: ‘We’re going to beat this coronavirus’ – video

Donald Trump has posted his first video message from Walter Reed hospital, saying: 'I came here, wasn’t feeling so well. I feel much better now. We’re working hard to get me all the way back ... I’ll be back, I think I’ll be back soon.'

During the four-minute video posted to Twitter, the president said that he could have stayed isolated at the White House after his Covid-19 diagnosis, but that he 'can't be locked up in a room and totally safe' - adding that 'as a leader you have to confront problems'. 

Trump acknowledged that the 'next few days will be the real test' and said the first lady, Melania Trump, who also tested positive for coronavirus, was 'really handling it very nicely' – with the president joking about their 24-year age gap during his video message

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Chaotic Trump-Biden debate may count for little – voters have already decided

Interruptions, bickering and a shocking tone may ultimately not matter, pollsters say, as most people have already made up their minds

First-time independent voter Benaja Richardson tuned into Tuesday’s now infamous debate between US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden hoping to be presented with a vision of the future and unity amid the turbulence of the current climate.

Instead the 18-year-old student from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a potential swing state, said it opened her eyes to “truly what catastrophic times we’re in”.

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Trump in quarantine as Covid diagnosis throws US into fresh upheaval

America’s leadership has been plunged into extraordinary uncertainty after Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, raising questions over how far the infection has penetrated the heart of government.

Related: Donald and Melania Trump showing 'mild' Covid symptoms as Joe and Jill Biden test negative – live

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Donald and Melania Trump showing ‘mild’ Covid symptoms as Joe and Jill Biden test negative – live

Here’s where the day stands so far:

Democratic nominee Joe Biden is moving forward with his plans to travel to Michigan today, after testing negative for coronavirus.

According to a pool report, Biden’s motorcade was en route to the airport as of about 20 minutes ago.

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Trump’s Covid diagnosis throws final month of campaign into total confusion

Huge questions over practical matters of rallies and travel, but also of whether Trump falls ill – and what that means for the election

Hours after the announcement that he had tested positive for Covid-19, Donald Trump canceled a planned trip to Florida for a campaign rally on Friday and announced that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, who also tested positive, would enter quarantine.

Related: What happens if Trump is incapacitated and how would it impact the election?

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What happens if Trump is incapacitated and how would it impact the election?

Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19 – but what happens if he can’t carry out his presidential duties?

Under the 25th amendment to the US constitution the president himself – or the vice-president with the agreement of eight cabinet officers, supported by Congress – can ask the vice-president, in this instance Republican Mike Pence, to take over as acting president.

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Trump joked while people suffered with Covid. Well, is now the time to stop? | Marina Hyde

Maybe the real victims of the president’s diagnosis are his MAGA disciples who don’t believe the virus even exists

Well, it’s definitely a plot twist. Like a lot of people who sat through Tuesday’s presidential debate, I’m amazed the week has ended with Donald Trump ingesting bleach, and not me.

As you may vaguely have heard, the US president and his wife, Melania, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus – which feels untimely given that, mere hours earlier, Trump had been declaring: “The end of the pandemic is in sight.” Perhaps this is a one-last-job movie. Alternatively, picture a Wuhan bat staring pensively into the fireplace as its butler suggests not thinking too hard about Trump’s motivations. Some poorly facepainted men just want to watch the world burn.

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Trump throws baseball caps into crowd days before announcing positive Covid test – video

Two days before announcing he had contracted Covid-19, Donald Trump tossed two campaign baseball caps into the crowd with his bare hands while at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota. 

The venue was crowded with hundreds of supporters on Wednesday and Trump, who did not wear a face mask, entered the stage smiling and waving to the crowd before addressing the rally. The president frequently minimised the seriousness of the pandemic in its early stages and has repeatedly predicted it would go away. 

Trump announced he and his wife, Melania, tested positive for Covid-19 in a tweet on Friday

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Trump rejects change to rules despite chaos and cringe of first debate

  • President interrupted and talked over Biden and moderator
  • Commission wants changes for ‘more orderly discussion’

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has rejected calls to change the rules of the next two presidential debates with Democratic challenger Joe Biden after the first chaotic event in Cleveland was marred by constant interruptions and outbursts.

Related: Trump signals he won't agree to rules changes for debates – live

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Trump signals he won’t agree to rules changes for debates – as it happened

From me and Joan E Greve:

In a memorable moment from the Republican National Convention, Guilfoyle rallied supporters in what Guardian Washington bureau chief David Smith described as “a high-octane audition for Evita – without an audience”.

She said that Democrats “want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear” and later screamed, “Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for liberty and the American Dream: the best is yet to come!”

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