When President Trump picked someone to conduct his first on-camera interview since testing positive for the coronavirus, he made the safest of choices: Dr. Marc Siegel, a physician and Fox News personality who has criticized Democratic governors for closing down schools and businesses to fight the pandemic and declared that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, is “there to serve the president.”Dr. Siegel did not disappoint. In an interview that aired on Friday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” he asked about the president’s symptoms (“I didn’t have a problem breathing,” Mr. Trump said). And he did not object when the president said the Secret Service agents who escorted him on a photo op limousine ride at the Walter Reed medical center “thought it was very important” that the commander in chief acknowledge his fans. Then Dr. Siegel offered a friendly suggestion for how Mr. Trump might get creative for his next meeting with his Democratic rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr. “How would you feel about a debate outside on Miami Beach?” the doctor said. At the most politically and physically vulnerable point of his presidency, Mr. Trump has retreated to his safe space: conservative media programs, where he can rely on warm, ego-boosting chats with supporters like Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.

Source: New York Times October 10, 2020 15:31 UTC