Visibly ill Donald Trump gasps and stumbles his way through Rose Garden national emergency announcement

| 3:43 pm EDT March 13, 2020
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Donald Trump held a Rose Garden press conference this afternoon to announce a National Emergency declaration, with the aim of allowing the U.S. federal government to better deal with the coronavirus crisis. It’s not yet clear how effective Trump’s latest move will be. More immediately, Trump came across as being gravely ill today – arguably even more gravely ill than his Oval Office address earlier this week.

Donald Trump, who seemed to be stopping to breathe after every four or five words, said “”$50 billion of very importantly” and stopped for a moment, seemingly unable to breathe, before correcting himself and saying “very important.” At various points Trump was rambling in incoherent fashion, despite having a prepared speech in front of him.

Trump tried to pull of plenty of bravado during the speech, bragging about how effective his early response was and the “talent” involved. And when he actually declared a “national emergency” he stopped and idiotically mused that those were “two very big words.”

What continues to be surreal here is that Donald Trump was directly exposed to the coronavirus a few days ago by a Brazilian official, and now Trump is showing visible signs of being gravely ill, yet he hasn’t been quarantined.