Mike Pence says Americans ‘have a right to know’ about Trump’s health during VP debate

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday at the vice presidential debate in Utah that Americans “have a right to know” about President Trump’s health as he receives treatment for COVID-19 and have been getting that information.

“The care the president received at Walter Reed hospital and White House doctors was exceptional,” Pence said at the University of Utah-hosted event.

“And the transparency that they practiced all along the way will continue. The American people have a right to know about the health and well-being of their president, and we’ll continue to do that.”

Trump was discharged Monday from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., after arriving by helicopter Friday night.

Debate moderator Susan Page of USA Today asked Pence if Trump’s health status was “information voters deserve to know,” saying, “President Trump’s doctors have given misleading answers or refused to answer basic questions about his health.”

Trump’s medical team initially dodged questions about whether Trump was given oxygen, and on Monday his doctors would not share at a press conference the results of Trump’s lung scans, citing a medical privacy law.

Physician to the president Dr. Sean Conley said in public memos Tuesday and Wednesday that Trump was reporting no symptoms after returning to the White House.

Trump received experimental “polyclonal antibodies” and oxygen at the White House on Friday after being diagnosed with the virus Thursday. At the hospital, he received doses of the antiviral drug remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California said at the debate that voters “absolutely” have a right to know about the president’s health.

“And that’s why Joe Biden has been so incredibly transparent and certainly, by contrast, the president has not — both in terms of health records, but also let’s look at taxes. We now know because of great investigative journalism that Donald Trump paid $750 in taxes,” she said, veering off from the topic at hand.

Harris said that Trump’s reported payment of $750 in 2016 and 2017 in personal federal income tax — a report Trump denied — was another area whether transparency is required.

“When I first heard about it. I literally said, ‘You mean $750,000? And it was like, ‘No, $750.’ We now know Donald Trump owes and is in debt for $400 million. And just so everyone is clear when when we say in debt, it means you owe money to somebody. And it’d be really good to know who the president of the United States, commander in chief owes money to because the American people have a right to know what is influencing the president’s decisions.”

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