Donald Trump Mocked For Incoherent Remarks On Kidney Health: ‘The Kidney Has A Special Place In The Heart’
Donald Trump may need to brush up on his biology.
On Wednesday, the president announced an overhaul to the U.S. health system’s approach to caring for kidney disease, moving patients out of dialysis centers and increasing the number of transplants. As Yahoo News noted, Trump announced that he would be directing Medicare to adjust payments to encourage more at-home dialysis, and to produce an additional 17,000 kidney transplants each year.
While it represented a major overhaul for the treatment of kidney disease, most of the buzz generated from the event centered around Donald Trump’s seemingly incoherent statements about kidney disease. The president remarked on the importance of the organ at length.
“The kidney, very special, the kidney has a very special place in the heart,” Donald Trump said, per CBS News White House correspondent Kathryn Watson on Twitter. “It’s an incredible thing. There’s a spirit like you see rarely.”
The statement drew plenty of interest on social media, with many sharing transcripts and video of the remarks in mocking Trump. CNN reporter Daniel Dale even posted the full transcript of Trump’s closing remarks on Twitter. The transcript detailed even more remarks about kidneys, and saw the president thanking others who were involved with this new initiative.
This is the latest in a long line of confusing statements from Donald Trump to have gained viral interest online. Earlier this year, Trump was mocked for what Vanity Fair described as a “rambling” statement, one declaring a national state of emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. The report noted that the president arrived to the announcement 40 minutes late, then proceeded to talk about a range of topics before finally getting around to declaring the national emergency.
“It is hard to capture in text the utter strangeness of the entire incoherent, self-defeating monologue. As always with Trump, the full video needs to be seen to be believed,” the report noted of Trump’s 50-minute statement.
Donald Trump has frequently been mocked for his stream-of-consciousness style of speaking when he’s not on script — and for sometimes drifting off the primary topic when he does have a script.
Here's how Trump ended his speech on kidney health: pic.twitter.com/0dESDNsCvO
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 10, 2019
TRUMP: "You've worked so hard on the kidney. Very special — the kidney has a very special place in the heart. It's an incredible thing." pic.twitter.com/JLM3uCsO5u
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2019
The viral reaction to Donald Trump’s kidney comments produced some immediate market consequences. As the Yahoo News report noted, companies that provide dialysis took a major hit on the stock market.
“DaVita Inc. fell 5.3% Tuesday in New York, the most since May 29. American Renal Associates Holdings Inc., based in Beverly, Massachusetts, slid 9.6%,” the report noted.
