Donald Trump has compared his return to the White House after being hospitalised for Covid-19 to a carefully choreographed theatrical production timed to air on primetime evening news bulletins.
“It was like a Broadway production,” Mr Trump told Jonathan Karl during an interview in March for his new book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.
Mr Karl writes that the former president planned his return from Walter Reed Medical Center to the White House on 5 October last year in minute detail.
His departure from hospital at 6.30pm coincided with the network news shows, and the president timed his arrival by helicopter on the South Lawn for sunset.
Mr Trump walked up the staircase on the South side of the White House and dramatically took off his face mask as he reached the top of the stairs.
Mr Karl, an ABC News political correspondent, wrote that Mr Trump “rarely walks more than he absolutely needs to”.
The former president originally planned to take off his shirt to reveal a Superman shirt underneath his suit, but was talked out of going ahead with that plan.
He stood at the top of the stairs and, struggling to breathe from the after-effects of his Covid illness, grimaced as he gave a thumbs up.
Mr Karl reports he was on a powerful dose of drugs at the time, including the steroid dexamethasone.
The made-for-TV moment, just a month before the presidential election, may have been the most impressively choreographed event of his presidency, Mr Karl writes.
It’s still unclear when Mr Trump contracted the virus, and he is believed to have been infectious when he attended the first presidential debate with Joe Biden.
He repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the Covid-19 virus, refused to wear a mask, and spread misinformation about the pandemic.
