'Our candidate is sick': Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis dismays Russian state media
According to a report from the Daily Beast's Russian media expert Julia Davis, hosts on the Kremlin-controlled media are reacting badly to news that Donald Trump has been hospitalized after contracting the COVIUD-19 virus, with one commentator calling the U.S. president, "our candidate."
The report states, " Discussing Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis, Evgeny Popov, the host of Russian state media news talk show 60 Minutes, said, 'Our candidate got sick.' His co-host Olga Skabeeva reminded the viewers that Trump is in a high-risk group, due to being elderly and overweight. Referring to former Vice President Joe Biden, Popov added, 'The other one may get sick too.'"
Davis said commentary also included condolences to the president who was taken to Walter Reed Hospital late Friday, and that Popov and Skabeeva also commented that the Democrats were “celebrating” Trump’s health woes, only to have reporter Denis Davydov in the U.S. point out that "Trump’s Twitter mentions are filled with messages of support," to which Popov shot back, "Those are just the Russian bots."
Davis adds that Deputy of the State Duma Aleksey Zhuravlyov remarked, "I’m glad that COVID got involved in the presidential race and it will most likely win. Not Joe Biden or Trump, but COVID will win," leading Popov to suggest, "So we’ve been interfering and interfering, but all of that was for naught?”
The Daily Beast report concluded on a chilling note, with Davis writing, "Russian state media outlet RT published a cartoon image of U.S. President Donald J. Trump in a coffin, after the image made the rounds on the internet. Pondering about the worst case scenario, 60 Minutes described the unfolding situation in the United States as 'the perfect storm.' Popov speculated that President Trump had infected the U.S. government in its entirety and cheerfully expressed Russia’s readiness to take control over America’s nuclear button."
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