At 7:57 tonight, the president of the United States stepped out of Marine One, using both hands to carefully grip the rails as he made his way down the stairs to his waiting motorcade. With much of his face more swollen than usual, his skin tacky with sweat that glistened under the lights shining down on him, he looked defeated and exhausted. He was once again wearing an oversized dark suit that hung large over his entire body. This whole scene was completely unexpected, as his schedule had him at Camp David through the weekend, before the abrupt change sent him rushing back to Washington, D.C., barely 24 hours after he arrived.
The bare-bones White House press office, which no longer has a press secretary after Karoline Leavitt left the position, offered no explanation or public statement. There was just a sudden update to his schedule around 6:20 PM and a gathering time for the press pool to quickly meet at 7:00 p.m. When Marine One landed at the Ellipse, reporters noticed an unidentified man seated across from Donald Trump. The only two people seen traveling with him in a secondary “support helicopter” were Natalie Harp, who is described as his human comfort blanket, and Walt Nauta, who served as Trump’s valet during his first term in office and is now an aide to the president. Once back at the White House, Donald Trump disappeared behind the gates without speaking a single word to the press throughout the entire trip back.
If this were a random change of plans that happened during a relatively calm moment in the world, maybe the questions we would be asking tonight would be more focused on Donald Trump himself and what could have caused such an abrupt change in his plans. Maybe we would consider that it had to do with his failing mental and physical health, or just that he doesn’t like Camp David, as he has said in the past, “You know how long you’d like it? For about 30 minutes.” But what we also learned in the hours surrounding his emergency-like return to D.C. points to bigger concerns across the Middle East, where escalating danger and destabilization are growing quickly.
What happened earlier today with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels showed that even though Donald Trump constantly says that this war is almost over and that Iran wants to “make a deal,” it is just more empty assurances coming from the Commander in Chief. Because nothing about what is happening is screaming that this is almost over. The Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the first time the Saudi capital has been directly targeted since the fighting escalated this summer. Saudi civil defense sent emergency alerts to phones across the city overnight, warning of potential aerial attacks. Then, early this morning, a massive plume of black smoke could be seen rising from a fuel depot near King Khalid International Airport, with flames appearing to come from storage tanks. The Houthis claimed they struck “sensitive sites” in the capital and targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu, where a key oil export terminal is located on the Red Sea. The missile was said to have been intercepted by the Saudi-led coalition, which also thwarted additional attacks across other cities. Following all of this violence, the State Department issued a security alert that went out to U.S. embassies in the Middle East, warning Americans that “this military conflict has the potential to escalate rapidly” and urging them to seriously reconsider travel to or through the region.
This is the kind of influence and impact Donald Trump has on the world. He doesn’t bring calm and diplomacy. He incites military violence and destabilization across entire regions and into the daily lives of people living throughout the entire planet.
This is just another extension of the war Donald Trump started without Congressional approval earlier this year. The “major combat operations” against Iran, with the help of the Israeli military, have negatively impacted people near and far. What he keeps trying to sell to us all as a show of strength keeps getting uglier. Negotiations come and go with no lasting resolution, and the Strait of Hormuz has now choked global shipping, with Iran learning that it holds enormous power just by controlling access to it.
What Trump didn’t account for, or completely ignored warnings about, is that what he is doing is reshaping the entire global order in ways that may take generations to undo, if they can or even should be. Countries that once looked to the United States as a stabilizing force are now forming alliances that deliberately exclude us, and creating defense pacts without us in them, and possibly planning for us as the enemy invader. They are negotiating trade agreements behind closed doors that we weren’t invited to participate in because they’ve decided they can no longer rely on or trust America.
None of this is even slightly surprising, coming from the man who said doing the work of the presidency, like participating in cabinet meetings, is “boring as hell” in a magazine interview earlier this year. Trump started this war, and Trump has escalated the war. And now he has no idea how to stop it or even rein it back in.
But there is another side to what is happening in America right now, outside the corrupt and incompetent Trump Administration, and we saw it in Washington, D.C., with ordinary Americans finding their way back to resisting in large and visible ways.
Last night, in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C., thousands of people poured onto the streets surrounding the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. They carried signs, and they sang. Then they joined hands and formed a human chain around the building, wrapping themselves around the walls in an act of protection. The president had been seen looking at plans and images depicting the Kennedy Center being torn down amid his dispute over having his name on the building, which was named in memory of JFK. Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter, spoke, and various musicians played on the steps. People held hands with strangers and refused to let go.
I watched that scene last night from the hospital room. It filled me with so much comfort to know the helpers were there, protecting it. Because if it is torn down, that is it. It is gone. Even if it is rebuilt in the likeness of the original, it would never be what we lost.
That was night three in the hospital with my husband. We are home now. I didn’t want to go too deep into why he was there until we knew more, but with his permission, I’d like to do so now. A few days ago, my husband Pete was taken to the hospital when he began to feel poorly after completing a strenuous run on the beach with a friend while they were training for an upcoming competition. Yesterday, he underwent more invasive testing that showed that right now, the preventative steps he is taking are working and that he does not require more treatment than what he has already been doing.
When I talk about a lot of what is happening in the country, much of it comes from a place of care for my family, of course, but also for the greater good of all of mankind, including the world’s children, parents, siblings, and partners like Pete is to me. Years ago, when the low-carb/high-fat diet fad was spreading, Pete, like so many, joined it. He didn’t stay long, realizing it not only didn’t optimize his health, but that it was also dangerous, and today he is still working to combat the damage that was most likely done during that time.
This is why medical disinformation matters so much to me. It’s why the lies coming out of the White House and the installation of a science denier leading HHS are horrific to me. My husband has done everything right. He follows a strictly plant-based diet, no added sugar (not that anyone needs to be that strict), no alcohol, no smoking, and he exercises like his life depends on it, because it does. Yet, he still has evidence of disease that his doctors believe genetics and that earlier diet most likely contributed to. And with the attacks on medications he takes now, which are making a significant positive impact on his health, like statins, my heart breaks for those who will be harmed by the latest reincarnations of the same dangerous thinking we have seen in the past.
We are still not completely sure what happened a few days ago, but I’m happy to share that he is in good spirits and appears to no longer be in acute danger. It has been some of the most terrifying days in both of our lives. Pete isn’t just my partner in all of this, doing all of the production work here, filming, and all the behind-the-scenes labor that makes it possible for me to sit down every night and write, but he is also my husband and my best friend.
Pete’s home now, and I’m so grateful. He’s going to have to take it easy, which will be incredibly difficult for him, but with the exceptional care he received in the hospital, I’m hopeful he will be 100% soon enough. The doctors, nurses, support staff, and every single person who touched our family during those days showed up with a level of care and compassion that reminded me why this fight matters so much. Those nurses are the same healthcare workers being gaslit and undermined by an administration that put a conspiracy theorist in charge of public health. They are now being forced to operate inside a system that RFK Jr. and his dangerous, anti-science propaganda are actively trying to dismantle. And yet they keep showing up for us all without hesitation.
Sitting in the hospital, surrounded by beeping machines, I kept thinking about how our time on this planet is limited, and that none of us get enough of it. I know that I will look back on these years and feel a deep anger that Donald Trump stole so many days from so many families, days that should have been spent living, not surviving. We still had so much work to do as a country before he came along, on social justice, equality, climate change, among so many other things. But what we didn’t have was this enormous and time-consuming fight for the basic survival of our democratic republic. We weren’t forced to watch a president destroy the institutions that hold us together. And we weren’t having to wrap our arms around buildings to keep the president at the time from tearing them down.
The next No Kings resistance event has been announced for a month from now, on October 17, and will be focused on encouraging early voting. Each event has grown larger than the last, and every time we see people turn out in masses, it is a reminder to us all that we are not alone. The timing for this next one is aimed at turning that energy into helping people make a plan to vote, getting them to the polls early where possible, and making sure that when November comes, the turnout is overwhelming. The No Kings Coalition, which includes dozens of organizations across the country, has made the message clear: power belongs to the people, but only if we use it, which we absolutely will. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: After we got home, the pups followed my husband around for the rest of the day and stared at him like this. It didn’t take me long to realize they had missed him as a person, but maybe even more so as their most dependable treat distributor.
Links to sources used in writing this article:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6100118-trump-returns-camp-david-early/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-demolish-kennedy-center/
Wishing your husband Pete a speedy recovery and you a good rest from all the emotional strain of the past few days. I appreciate what you do every day. Thank you for keeping us informed with the TRUTH! You are a blessing.
Glad to hear you've got Pete home again. It's always harrowing to have someone in hospital, no matter how much faith you have in the care provided. I hate hospitals, too many sick people. Plant based diets won't kill you, but the alternative will shorten the healthy years. I've been vego 43 years, vegan 7. So far so good.
Trumps glum appearance is a mystery. What on earth could make him so slumped? He doesn't care enough about anything to account for his miserable face.