Was this the most selfish, insensitive, deceitful moment of his presidency?

September 29: On This Day In 2020

The utterly shameful brag: “We’ve done a great job” on Covid, claimed President Donald Trump. This was OTDI 2020, the day before the first Biden-Trump debate.

The mock: The next day, at the debate itself, Trump compared the safety practices of the two men: “When needed, I wear masks. I don’t have — I don’t wear masks like [Biden]. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from — and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

The hospitalization: Two days later, Donald gets airlifted to Walter Reed Medical Center hospital with Covid. He has dangerously low blood oxygen levels. Turns out, Trump came much closer to dying than was revealed at that time.

The kicker: It also later turned out that Trump had tested positive for Covid even before the debate. But he went ahead with it anyway, thereby endangering Biden and everyone else in the room. (And remember, this came before there was Paxlovid to help mitigate the impacts of catching Covid.)

Dive Deeper

• FactCheck covers the timeline

• The Guardian reports on the diagnosis

• Forbes also reports on the timing revelations made by Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows

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On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump tested positive for Covid before debate