Meadows says Trump’s blood oxygen level was dangerously low when he had COVID-19

(The Hill) — Former President Donald Trump‘s blood oxygen level fell to a dangerous low after he tested positive for COVID-19 last year, according to a new book by former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

In his upcoming book, “The Chief’s Chief,” Meadows offers a detailed account of Trump’s bout with COVID-19, according to The New York Times.

Meadows writes that Trump recorded a blood oxygen level of about 86%, about 10 points below normal, just hours after announcing on Twitter that he had tested positive for the virus last Oct 2. 

“That morning, Dr. Conley pulled me aside and delivered some bad news,” Meadows said of Sean Conley, who led the White House medical team, per the Times. “Although the president’s condition had improved slightly overnight, his oxygen levels had now dipped down to about 86% and could be trending lower, a dangerously low level for someone his age.”

It later became evident that Trump would require outside care, and the medical team requested that Meadows intervene, the newspaper reported.

“We don’t have the resources to do it here,” Conley told the former chief of staff, according to the book.

“I worried that the notion of him going to the hospital, in his mind, would seem like an act of capitulation,” Meadows wrote. “I was right.”

At first, Meadows recalled that Trump was hesitant to leave the White House and told his former chief of staff that he would be fine, the Times added. 

“It’s better that you walk out of here today under your own strength, your own power, than for me to have to carry you out on a gurney in two days,” Meadows said.

Since the revelations from his book regarding Trump’s illness circulated last week, Meadows has seemingly attempted to align himself with Trump, even retweeting the former president’s statement that said the “story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News.”

Also last week, Meadows refuted his own book’s reports about Trump’s positive COVID-19 test prior to a debate with then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in 2020. 

“Well, the president’s right, it’s fake news. If you actually read the book — the context of it — that story outlined a false positive,” the former chief of staff said in an interview on Newsmax.