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Trump Criticised for Leaving Hospital to Greet Supporters
US President Donald Trump sparked an angry backlash from the medical community Sunday with a protocol-breaking visit to his supporters outside the hospital where he is being treated for the highly-infectious, potentially deadly new coronavirus.
He was masked as he waved from inside his bulletproof vehicle during the short trip outside Walter Reed military medical center near Washington, which appeared designed to take back the narrative on his improving health after a weekend of muddled messaging from his doctors.
The last-minute limousine outing came with Trump’s doctors satisfied enough about his progress to suggest the possibility of his being discharged on Monday.
But experts complained that the outing broke his own government’s public health guidelines requiring patients to isolate while they are in treatment and still shedding virus — and endangered his Secret Service protection.
Trump, who has been repeatedly rebuked for flouting public health guidelines and spreading misinformation on the pandemic, said in a video that dropped on Twitter just before the appearance that he had “learned a lot about Covid” by “really going to school” as he has battled the virus.
But health experts took to the airwaves and social media to criticize the “stunt,” which they said demonstrated that he had learned nothing at all.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” said James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University.
“They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere said “appropriate” precautions had been taken to protect Trump and his support staff, including protective gear.
“The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do,” he added.
But Zeke Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and regular TV pundit, described the appearance as “shameful.”
“Making his Secret Service agents drive with a COVID-19 patient, with windows up no less, put them needlessly at risk for infection. And for what? A PR stunt,” he tweeted.
Confused messaging
The episode came hours after a briefing by Trump’s medical team, who said he had “continued to improve” and could be returned to the White House, which has the facilities to treat and isolate the president, as early as Monday.
The president was flown to Walter Reed with a high fever on Friday after a “rapid progression” of his illness, with his oxygen levels dropping worryingly low, Trump’s physician Sean Conley said in a Sunday briefing.
Health experts have complained that the messaging from the administration — and particularly Trump’s medical team — has caused widespread confusion.
Conley admitted Sunday that he had kept from the public the fact that the president had been given extra oxygen, in a bid to reflect an “upbeat attitude.”
And he gave a rosy account of Trump’s progress Saturday, only for White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to tell reporters immediately after that Trump’s condition had been “very concerning” and that he was “still not on a clear path to a full recovery.”
‘White House Cluster’
With his tough reelection campaign in its final month against Democratic rival Joe Biden, Trump’s diagnosis and hospitalization have left him sidelined from what he does best — campaigning.
Meanwhile, Biden — who announced Sunday his latest negative test for the virus — will start the week with a trip Monday to key swing state Florida.
But Trump and his advisors have done their best to project a sense of continuity.
His deputy campaign manager Jason Miller told ABC Sunday he had spoken to Trump for a half-hour Saturday and that the president was “cracking jokes.”
But controversy has been mounting over the possibility that Trump might have exposed numerous others to Covid-19 even after a close aide tested positive.
A timeline provided by his advisors and doctors suggested he met more than 30 donors on Thursday in Bedminster, New Jersey, even after learning that Hope Hicks had the virus — and just hours before he announced his own positive test.
There were more than 200 people at the fundraiser, and a contact-tracing operation underway in New Jersey was looking at potentially thousands of people who may have been exposed.
All this came in a week when a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll — taken in the two days after a bruising presidential debate with Biden but before news emerged of Trump’s illness — gave Biden a significant 53-39 percent lead among registered voters.
As well as Trump and Hicks, numerous White House insiders and at least three Republican senators have contracted Covid-19, along with First Lady Melania Trump, who has not experienced severe symptoms.
Public health experts have expressed alarm at the “White House cluster” that has been linked to the September 26 Rose Garden celebration of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment in the appeal filed by the Taminu Turaki-led group of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) seeking to overturn the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which nullified the conduct of the party’s national convention, held last year in Ibadan, Oyo State.
A five-member panel of the apex court announced on Wednesday that its judgment would be delivered on a date to be communicated to all parties in the appeal.
Justice Garba Mohammed, who led the five-member panel, made the announcement shortly after lawyers representing parties in the appeal adopted their processes as briefs of their arguments for and against the appeal.
The appeal was filed by the Turaki-led group’s national executives of the party who emerged from the convention.
They had approached the apex court to challenge the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had nullified the convention for being held in disobedience of a valid order of the court.
While adopting their brief of argument filed on April 2, the appellants, through their team of lawyers led by Paul Erokoro (SAN), urged the Supreme Court not only to allow their appeal but also to dismiss a cross-appeal lodged against them by a leadership group in the party aligned with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
Meanwhile, Lamido, who was represented by J. C. Njikonye (SAN), as well as the Wike-backed group represented by Joseph Daudu (SAN), filed preliminary objections seeking dismissal of the appeal.
The respondents insisted that, contrary to the contention by the Turaki-led group, the appeal did not fall within the sphere of the PDP’s internal affairs.
It was the respondents’ position that both the high court and the appellate court had rightly exercised jurisdiction over the matter.
Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, in a judgment last year, restrained the then-Ambassador Iliya Damagum-led National Executive Committee of the PDP from proceeding with the convention slated for November 15 and 16, 2026, in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Justice Lifu had ordered that the convention should not hold until an aspirant to the office of national chairman, former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, is allowed to purchase interest and nomination forms to enable him to participate in the convention for the election of national officers.
The party, however, went ahead to conduct the convention in disregard of the orders of the court.
The PDP had predicated its action to conduct the convention on the grounds that the court lacked the jurisdiction to stop the convention, as the issue brought before it was an internal matter of the PDP, which no court has jurisdiction to delve into.
However, the appellate court in its judgment last month disagreed that the issue at the trial court was an internal affair of a political party, which courts cannot entertain.
The three-member panel of the appellate court subsequently nullified the outcome of the convention for being held in disobedience to the orders of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
Dissatisfied, the PDP approached the apex court, praying it to accept the appeal against the lower court judgment, set the judgment aside, and hold that the issue was an internal matter of the PDP, which both the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain.
However, the respondents in the appeal urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lack of merit and hold otherwise.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed the appeal filed by Julius Abure challenging the legitimacy of the Nenadi Usman-led leadership of the Labour Party (LP).
A three-member panel of the appellate court, in a Tuesday judgment, unanimously affirmed the January 21 judgment by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which upheld the legitimacy of the 29-member caretaker committee of the LP, led by Senator Usman.
In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Oyejoju Oyewumi, which Justices Abba Mohammed and Eberechi Nyesom-Wike agreed with, the appellate court held that the earlier Supreme Court judgment conclusively settled the leadership dispute within the LP by nullifying the convention that purportedly returned Abure as National Chairman.
Justice Lifu had, in the January 21 judgment, relied on an April 4, 2025, decision of the Supreme Court, which held that Abure’s tenure as the party’s National Chairman had expired. The judgment directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognize Senator Usman and other members of her committee as the legitimate leaders of the party, to the exclusion of all others.
The court further held that the lower court had the power under Section 251 of the Constitution to compel a statutory Federal government agency to perform its functions when it ordered INEC to recognize Senator Nenadi Usman as the National Chairman of the Labour Party.
It was equally agreed with the trial court that constituting the LP’s caretaker committee, headed by Usman, was a doctrine of necessity required to provide leadership in the party when a vacuum appeared to exist.
The court faulted Abure’s claim that the trial court denied him a fair hearing and accused him of abusing the court process.
The court also accused Abure of forum shopping by appearing before the Nasarawa State High Court in a case already decided by the Supreme Court, and of persisting in the claim the party’s leadership despite the apex court’s clear and unambiguous pronouncement.
It held that the appeal, marked: CA/ABJ/CV/255/2026, was devoid of merit and constituted an abuse of court process.
“On the whole, I agree with the decision and conclusion of the trial court as the same, being in accordance with the Constitution,” Justice Oyewumi held, adding that the lower court reached a reasonable conclusion that the Court of Appeal cannot fault.
While dismissing the appeal, the court awarded him costs of N10 million for wasting the court’s time on an issue that had already been conclusively determined.
Earlier, the court held that Nenadi Usman, as a juristic person, had the right to file the case before the trial court, and that the trial court had jurisdiction to hear and determine the case.
The court also rejected Abure’s allegation that the lower court denied him a fair hearing, noting that the claim lacked any basis.
President Bola Tinubu has approved a minor cabinet reshuffle in the membership of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
According to a memo signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, two cabinet members, Mr. Wale Edun and Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa are to leave the cabinet while their replacements have been named.
A statement signed by the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Yomi Odunuga, on Tuesday evening, said Edun, until the latest development, was the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy.
“He has been directed to hand over to Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, who is now to take over as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy. Oyedele was formerly a Minister of State in the ministry.
“Also Mr. Muttaqha Rabe Darma (PhD.) has been named as the ministerial nominee and minister-designate for the Housing and Urban Development Ministry,” Odunuga stated.
The memo also directed Dangiwa to hand over to the Minister of State in the ministry pending Darma’s confirmation.
The memo stated that “all handing over and taking over processes should be completed on or before close of business on Thursday 23rd April, 2026.”
Explaining the President’s decision, Odunuga quoted Akume as saying: “These changes are aimed at strengthening cohesion, synergy in governance as well as achieving more impactful delivery on the economy to Nigerians, through the Renewed Hope Agenda.”
He said the President, in approving the cabinet reshuffle, has fully exercised his powers as conferred on him by Sections 147 and 148 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999, as amended).
The President thanked the outgoing ministers for their services to the nation while wishing them the best in all their future endeavours.
The President, Akume noted, equally assured all cabinet members that “the process of reinvigoration shall be continuous.”
