While he seeks to project an image of being fearless and in control, President Donald Trump became a terrified, whiny old man during his stay at Walter Reed National Medical Center, talking to friends and fearful he was about to die, according to an illuminating report from Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine:
“Donald Trump was on the phone, and he was talking about dying. It was Saturday, October 3, and while his doctor had told the outside world that the president’s symptoms were nothing to worry about, Trump, cocooned in his suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, was telling those close to him something very different.
“I could be one of the diers.”
Nuzzi also notes that the person Trump was speaking with was struck by what the president had just revealed about himself:
“The person on the other end of the line couldn’t forget that unusual word the president used: dier. A seldom-said dictionary standard, it was a classic Trumpism, at once sinister and childlike. If being a loser was bad, being a dier was a lot worse. Losers can become winners again. Diers are losers forever. But aren’t we all diers in the end? Donald Trump, the least self-reflective man in America, was contemplating his own mortality.”
Ironically, just hours before he wound up at the hospital, Trump was stubborn and refused to seek medical attention. It was only after the Secret Service and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, insisted that the president finally relented.
The larger threat to Trump now that he’s reportedly feeling stronger, however, is what COVID-19 has done to his chances of reelection. The American people overwhelmingly thing he bungled the U.S. response to the virus and that 212,000 people didn’t have to die. As a result, Trump is now looking for a scapegoat he can blame if he does indeed lose in a landslide to Joe Biden:
“’I don’t think he wants to lose. I think he wants to have excuses for why he did lose,’ a third former White House official said. ‘If it’s the ballot, the China virus, if it’s Nancy Pelosi. I just think he wants an excuse.'”
As many have long suspected, Donald Trump isn’t brave, isn’t wise, and isn’t much of a man. He’s just a spoiled little boy who never grew up and now lives in fear of everyone and everything.
Featured Image Via CNN
