White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirmed that President Donald Trump on Friday had a fever and rapidly declining levels of blood oxygen before making a recovery.
“Yesterday, we were real concerned,“ Meadows told Fox News on Saturday evening. ”He had a fever, and his blood oxygen level dropped rapidly.”
The president has since made an “unbelievable improvement” with no fever and improving oxygen saturation levels, Meadows added.
“I’m very, very optimistic based on the current results,“ he said, adding, ”He’s not out of the woods for the next 48 hours or so.”
Meadows made the comments on Saturday evening amid concerns about conflicting messages about the president’s health. Meadows appears to have contributed to the confusion with some off-the-record comments he made to reporters outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday morning.
“Twenty-four hours ago, there was real concern about the President’s vitals,“ Meadows said at the time. ”For the past 12 hours, there has been zero concern.”
Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News on Sunday morning that the president “felt pretty bad” during the first day after the diagnosis.
“He said he felt pretty bad the first day, but now he feels, for the last 24 hours—and that was 3 o'clock yesterday—he felt perfectly fine,” Giuliani said.
In a nightly update on Saturday, the president’s physician, Sean Conley, said that Trump has made substantial progress since testing positive for the CCP virus.
“He remains fever free and off supplemental oxygen with a saturation level between 96 and 98% all day. He spent most of the afternoon conducting business, and has been up and moving about the medical suite without difficulty,” Conley continued.
“While not yet out of the woods, the team remains cautiously optimistic. The plan for tomorrow is to continue observation in between doses of Remdesivir, closely monitoring his clinical status while fully supporting his conduct of presidential duties.”
The White House announced at 1 a.m. on Oct. 2 that the president and first lady tested positive for the CCP virus. Trump has since moved to Walter Reed, where he continues to work. The first lady remains at the White House where she is said to be doing well with mild symptoms.
During the interview on Saturday night, Meadows took aim at some of the media coverage of the president’s diagnosis.
“I have seen some of the reports and all of the pictures about the transition of power and who’s going to replace this person or that person and while that may make for good clicks on the internet and make for great hyperbole on TV, there was never a consideration and never even a risk for a transition of power,” Meadows said.
