Trump sounds pretty raspy, coughs in Hannity phone interview

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/Fox News)

published 9 October 2020

President Trump called into Sean Hannity's Fox News show on Thursday night, and he sounded at times like a 74-year-old man suffering through a respiratory infection.

Trump, who said he tested positive for COVID-19 less than a week ago, then spent four days at Walter Reed hospital, has declared himself cured. "I'm back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I'm extremely young," he said on Fox Business earlier Thursday, adding that he doesn't think he's contagious. Later, in a video he posted to Twitter, he joked, "I'm a senior — I know you don't know that," and again suggested he received a COVID-19 cure.

Trump did make some news on Hannity, though — or at least he appeared to — when he suggested he hasn't been tested since his positive result came back. "The test will be tomorrow," he told Hannity, "because there's no reason to test all the time, but they found very little infection or virus, if any. I don't know that they found any, I didn't go into it greatly with the doctors."

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The White House has point-blank refused to say when Trump last tested negative for the coronavirus, and Trump wouldn't tell Hannity, either.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.