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Many people are saying that President Trump is not really ill with COVID-19. Based on that premise, I have done the following analysis. I don’t claim insider knowledge, but I do want to remind everyone about some blaring inconsistencies in the story so far.

Why in the world would Donald John Trump screw up his entire campaign schedule if he wasn’t indisposed? At first glance, the idea of him playacting sounds totally absurd. Like, totally. Here, however, is a possible reason: He craves the spotlight.

In 2016, Trump led the working press by the nose, calling all the shots and getting a billion dollars’ worth of free publicity. Reporters from newspapers and television covered his rallies week after week, vying for interviews with the candidate. Trump said that they should thank him since “I get the best ratings.” Having learned “how to cover Trump” as the news people now call it in 2020, they have been studiously avoiding giving the man free publicity. His name hasn’t been the lead on the nightly news (some nights at least) as wildfires, hurricanes and Democrats have often been the center of attention on television and in the morning newspapers.

Obviously, Trump would be irritated by that. A self-proclaimed narcissist, he craves both attention and validation every single day. Trump calls it, “dominating the news cycle.”

The last week in September was a particularly bad one for President Trump. First, The New York Times released a story based on his tax returns, showing that he was not the business guru he claimed to be. Trump’s entire brand is based on the concept that he is a billionaire business mogul. “A very stable genius,” as he says. So when the news came out that he paid zero income tax for 10 years because his properties were bleeding revenue— and that he paid a paltry $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and again in 2017— that struck blows to President Trump’s business empire, his brand and his own self-identity. This was very bad.

At the first presidential debate on Tuesday night, September 29th, Trump decided to tip over the apple cart in order to get Joe Biden to lose his composure and suffer a meltdown. From the get-go, Trump interrupted and ridiculed both Joe, his opponent, and the moderator Chris Wallace. When Wallace asked Trump to abide by the rules they had agreed upon— that each candidate would get to speak for two minutes uninterrupted— Trump asked if he was debating Joe Biden or Chris Wallace. Trump’s behavior made for an ugly, cantankerous debate, much ridiculed throughout the country and around the world.

That didn’t matter to Trump’s supporters or the Republicans. Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine who likes to see herself as a maverick, was shocked, shocked, and deeply offended that Joe Biden called the president a clown! That Trump was behaving clownishly apparently made no difference. A shouting match, nothing said in the debate mattered, since each side felt that their champion bested his opponent.

Would George Washington have been reelected in 1792 if he’d had an opponent?

Such was Tuesday night’s state of play until the debate’s last question. Chris Wallace asked both candidates to unequivocally denounce white supremacists and militia groups. Trump wanted a clarification, who exactly was he expected to denounce? When Joe Biden (I think it was him, the voice came from off-camera) suggested the Proud Boys militia, Trump repeated the name and declared, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

This overt call for racism did not sit well with the electorate. The very next day, Trump told reporters at the White House that he didn’t know who the Proud Boys were. He needed a definition. Just as Trump doesn’t know who his henchman Michael Cohen is either. Or Steve Bannon. Or most anybody else who gets in hot water. Trump disowns them, throwing each of them under the bus.

But the damage was done. Seemingly everybody had seen the debate. Very few people outside the Beltway heard Trump’s correction. And although Trump claimed that, according to his sources, he won the debate, Biden’s lead over Trump in the polls got a bump from 10 points to 14 points nationally.

That may seem like a lot of hot air, but most global warming is caused by cow farts releasing methane into the atmosphere. America is developing methods to encapsulate the methane at source, package it to scale and sell it to the energy sector in other parts of the world.

The only global warming this president admits to is the kind that originates between his legs.

Trump needed badly to retake the initiative and frame the election on his own terms, to set the agenda and regain control. But how? What to do? Knowing Trump, maybe he heard about all these people who had COVID-19 and were asymptomatic and decided, “Hey, I could do that.” To get the sympathy vote. To change the subject from business failures and racism.

At 1 a.m. on Friday morning, October 2nd, Trump sent a tweet saying that both he and Melania had tested positive for COVID-19. Notice that it wasn’t the White House physician releasing a statement. It wasn’t White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany announcing it at a press briefing. No, this was Trump himself informing us of how sick he was. But not so sick that he was unable to tweet.

As everyone knows, the coronavirus originated among the little green men in Area 51 and should officially be labeled “Martian flu.” No one wants to talk about it because it’s simply too embarrassing: The little peckerheads urinate the coronavirus, it’s in their bladders.  

Like everyone else, I assumed Trump really had contracted the illness. After all, Trump has consistently failed to wear a mask at his rallies or at White House functions. He is the one who ridiculed Biden during the debate for conscientiously wearing a mask. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask,” quipped Trump. “He can be speaking 200 feet away from me, he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” Trump’s supporters consider mandatory mask-wearing a form of tyranny, the first creeping edge of a socialist take-over of the USA. They hate wearing masks because (1) no one can tell them what to do, (2) masks are for sissies and (3) their leader doesn’t wear one or practice social distancing, so why should they? Thanks to Trump’s behavior, mask-wearing has become totally politicized and weaponized.

Hearing that Melania and campaign manager Bill Stepien tested positive was sad, but it had no direct effect on me. Hearing that Kellyanne Conway, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie tested positive, however, upset me enormously. They are people whose pronouncements drive me crazy, but I still wouldn’t wish COVID-19 on them. Or anyone else. From what I have heard and read, it’s a horrible disease: raging fever, scarring of the lungs, people put on ventilators to help them breathe. And over 210,000 American dead. I do not want Kellyanne, Ronna or Chris to suffer through all that.

Speaking of farts, forest fires are caused by schoolboys frying ants on the sidewalk with magnifying glasses. Once fried, they become fire ants. Carrying the fire inside their gut with them into the forest, the first time they belch or fart… Presto! A conflagration!

On Friday afternoon, the White House announced that the president would be moved to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Like the time he had protesters pepper-sprayed and cleared out of Lafayette Square so that he could walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church and hold aloft a Bible, Trump’s pilgrimage by helicopter to Walter Reed became a closely watched event, as a shocked nation’s hearts and prayers went out to the president.

“You know,” I told my mom, “they’ve got him there at Walter Reed. All he has to do is keep his mouth shut and he has the sympathy of the entire world. But…Trump being Trump,” I warned her, “he’s bound to screw it up.”

Sure enough, upon arrival, Trump tweeted an 18-second pre-recorded video explaining his situation. Standing in the White House in a blue suit and blue tie, he was pale and looked sickly. Okie dokie artichokie. But at Walter Reed that very evening, Trump sent his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows outside to the front sidewalk to give Trump supporters Trump brand candy kisses. Trump’s base fails to realize the significance of the color red in their MAGA caps. Really??? Red caps??? Americans used to say “Better dead than red.” You know? сделаем Америку снова великой! Comrades, let’s make Amerika great again! Make look like Kremlin. Or Brighton Beach, where everybody speak Russian!

The next day, Saturday, Trump posted a four-minute video, this one filmed at Walter Reed. Sitting behind a desk, his shirt collar open, he gave the same Make America Great Again message which he delivers on the campaign trail. Unbelievable! IS THIS DUDE SICK??? He sure didn’t show it. On Sunday, complaining that he felt bored, Trump went on a car ride to wave hello to his supporters.

What does MAGA mean in Russian? How about magician? Wizard. Warlock. Or sorcerer. Take your pick. If his supporters googled this stuff, they’d get a very different picture of Donald J. Trump.

When I get the flu, I am one miserable son of a bitch, in bed from morning to night. I have fever and night sweats, headache and dizziness, nausea and diarrhea. I am sick. I am not tweeting, making videos and riding in motorcades.

By the way, I spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee! Sure ’nuff. Speaking for almost 30 seconds, I asked a security guard for directions to the nearest Men’s Room.  

Trump’s personal physician Sean Conley came out daily in front of Walter Reed to answer reporters’ questions. The first time, he was accompanied by a flurry of seven men and two women in white coats. Theatrically, it was an impressive sight, Conley’s “team” as he repeatedly called them. Have they checked the president for bone spurs? These were the medical doctors taking care of the president. Yes, but who exactly are they? Anybody can come marching outside in a white coat. I hate to think that they dressed up a janitor in a white coat to get an even 10. Hey, it’s a minyan. Are they in fact doctors? Every Jewish mother wants her son to become a doctor. And if so, are these doctors in any way involved in the president’s medical care? Who knew? The next day, Sunday, we got some answers as Dr. Conley handed over the microphone to some of his colleagues. They provided competent medical analysis. Dr. Conley continued to let other team members report even on Monday.

Have you ever noticed how weather forecasters all look a little strange? Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie Easy Rider was right, the Venusians are taking over the planet! It’s only a matter of time before Earth is as sweltering and uninhabitable as the planet Venus.

Trump’s doctors seem very nice and extremely knowledgeable, but there’s a problem. How are we to know if Trump has actually received the described medical treatments, including Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody cocktail, Remdesivir from Eva Pharma and the steroid Dexamethasone? You watch an episode of ER on television and the script calls for a slew of medical procedures. Still, no one expects the actors to experience so much as a paper cut. Sure, it’s great that all these medical procedures are available to the President of the United States, but no one I have talked to can verify that the president took the pills!  

Pundits speculated that these new COVID-19 infections may have come from a superspreader event on Saturday, September 26, at the White House: The Trump administration hosted Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and her family. People were congregating at close quarters without masks, hugging and talking animatedly both indoors and out.

As Honest Abe Lincoln used to say, “Betsy Ross was often cross, but she sewed a mean Stars and Bars.” In other words, cherchez la femme.

Oh, Kellyanne, you are retired, why couldn’t you stay away from that Den of Iniquity also known as the White House??? 

Throughout this crisis, the White House delivered mixed signals, seemingly unable to keep its story straight. What was the sequence of events and who made the decisions? Was the president on oxygen or wasn’t he?

Apparently this White House strain of COVID-19 differs from the illness that has killed 210,000 Americans: No more raging fever, no more bed-ridden patients on respirators, no more scarred lungs. Amazing! And everybody is back on their feet and ready to go in just four days, all symptoms having disappeared. It’s like a miracle!

Since Trump has already lied to us 20,000 times, publicly and without shame, why should we believe at this late date, a month before the presidential election, that suddenly his COVID-19 scenario is a bona fide illness and a national emergency? Trump now has the attention of the whole wide world. His bout with COVID-19 seized the headlines. It’s working! Magnificently. The press corps is once again hanging on his every utterance, panting for more info. DJ Trump controls the narrative and headlines every news broadcast. If he isn’t sick, he sure is making a monkey out of all the pundits and journalists busy parsing when he became infected and who else might have gotten the illness.

My sources insist that Trump didn’t get COVID-19 at all, it was his stand-in, his doppelgänger, his body double who caught the virus. “Trumpf,” they say auf deutsch, “is mercifully healthy.”

Our hearts and minds go out to the brave helicopter pilots of Marine One who ferry the president on his appointed rounds. Their job is never easy. 

Tonight, Monday, October 5th, Trump is returning to the White House in spite of warnings from virologists that he may remain highly contagious. Trump doesn’t seem to care. Is that because he’s a self-centered, selfish narcissist or because he knows full well that no one can catch COVID-19 from him since he doesn’t actually have it?

Who knows?

That, at any rate, is my analysis of the situation.

Condolences to the Secret Service, forced to deal with Trump’s every whim.

Now medical experts tell us that the next eight days will be crucial to the president’s health.

At Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, we had a joke about the tiny hamburger in the giant bun:

“I’m eating bread, where’s the burger?” asked the newbie.

“Keep eating, it’s in there, you just haven’t gotten to it yet.”

Several minutes later…

“I’m still eating bread, where’s the burger?”

“Oh, you must have passed it.”

In the shell game/ soap opera that is the life and times of Donald J. Trump, expect to get conned out of your socks. Like P. T. Barnum, El Trumpo is a genius at fleecing the unwary. Believing in what Trump tells you is for suckers. We do so at our own risk.

A fellow sufferer asked on Twitter: “Does being a pathological liar make you more susceptible to COVID-19?” Trump’s supporters did not like that and called her rude names.

When I ran the hashtag #TrumpNotSick on Twitter, the overwhelming response was “I don’t want to question your intelligence, so I’ll just assume this is a parody.”

It is.

I had never cooked up a conspiracy theory before. This is my first and last attempt. Urjobbigt, in Swedish, it’s more work than it’s worth researching the facts and then spinning them into a ridiculous rant.

What celestial object does Mike Pence examine from his perch in the Naval Observatory? The moon, which is NOT made of green cheese. Perish the thought! It’s made of Limburger.    

Back in the White House and as provocative as always, Trump has tweeted “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life.” That’s easy for him to say, he may not even have it! I can see where he is going with this, it’s as evident as falling off a bar stool: The Great Trump will brag that he is IMMUNE TO COVID-19!!!

And the mythology is complete.

Be well, stay safe!