Boris Johnson has been moved to the ICU – and it’s a big deal for Donald Trump

| 4:53 pm EDT April 6, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now been moved to the Intensive Care Unit, after having been admitted to the hospital earlier with complications from coronavirus. This obviously has major implications for the United Kingdom, its government, and the coronavirus crisis in the UK – as well as obviously being a big deal for Johnson and his loved ones. But how is this going to impact Donald Trump?

Trump has gone from spending a long time pretending this was a hoax, to now taking it seriously – but in a completely deranged way. He’s more focused on whatever for-profit scams he’s running by pushing medical equipment around, and by promoting untested miracle drugs, than he is in saving lives.

Now Boris Johnson, the closest thing that Donald Trump has to a friend on the world stage, is fighting for his life as a result of the coronavirus. We’ve seen that when Trump does occasionally show shades of what you might call empathy, it’s only toward people he sees as being highly similar to himself. In other words, it’s narcissistic empathy.

For instance, Donald Trump has complained mightily about how Paul Manafort is rotting in prison, because Trump knows he could someday be rotting in prison for the same crimes. The question is how the news of Boris Johnson being in the ICU might impact Trump’s own fear of catching this virus. Will Trump finally change his approach, once he realizes that his own life could be on the line? If so, his new approach will probably just be some new form of derangement.