“Of course he has no Covid symptoms any more – he’s in the grip of the side-effects of those experimental drugs they’ve been giving him!” With speculation over the condition of President Trump’s health rife, following his Covid-19 diagnosis and subsequent release from hospital, an anonymous White House source has raised fears as to the possible side-effects of some of the radical treatments used on Trump: “Believe me, some of these effects are far, far worse than the virus itself!” While the anonymous source declined to elaborate upon the severity or nature of these alleged side-effects, The Sleaze has spoken to several medical experts in order to try and build a picture of what might currently be happening to Trump. “I think it needs to be understood that most side-effects to pharmaceuticals are actually pretty mundane,” opines Dr Finlay Cameron of the West Lothian Veterinary Practice and Fine Butchers Shop. “You know the sort of thing; sweating, palpitations, urine turning bright orange or just plain shitting yourself. It’s pretty rare to see these Jekyll into Hyde type transformations, with the patient turning into a ravening, bestial sex offender. That said, they might include erratic behaviour such as running around naked or the patient thinking that they are a werewolf.” Thankfully, there have, so far, been no reports of a naked Trump howling at the moon. Another expert, however, has told us that the sort of treatments used on Trump to battle Covid are so experimental and untested that their side-effects would be completely unpredictable and lie outside of normal parameters.

“There were some trials of a new experimental dug a few months ago where, while suppressing the Covid symptoms, caused strange, unnatural cravings in the subjects,” revealed Professor Gillespie-Kildare of the Poughkeepsie Institute of Venereal Disease Studies. “If it hadn’t been for the panic and lockdown, it would have been far more difficult for the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) to have kept the lid on that outbreak of cannibalism in Pittsburgh, I can tell you.” Gillespie-Kildare believes the fact that the President hasn’t actually been seen on camera since returning to the White House, might suggest that he is the throes of an outbreak of cannibalism. “My theory is that they’ve got him locked in the bunker, throwing him chunks of raw meet every so often in an attempt to satiate his cravings,” he claims. “Of course, that won’t do any good as it is only human flesh that he craves – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they don’t have to sacrifice some of the housekeeping staff to keep him under control. Maybe some who are unregistered immigrants.” Indeed, at least one US tabloid has run a story claiming that a witness glimpsed, through a window, a crazed and blood-spattered Trump chowing down on a human arm, before being cornered by a group of Secret Service agents wielding brooms with which to keep him at bay. “The way we’ve heard it, what they are worried about isn’t so much Trump infecting everyone with Covid, but rather with cannibalism,” asserted Deke Spiggott, proprietor, editor and chief writer of the Weekly World Shopper. “Apparently, this side effect can be passed on through a bite – they’re terrified that if they don’t keep him locked up, they’ll have a whole White House full of blood thirsty crazed flesh hunters!”

A third expert has dismissed such speculation as being ‘sensationalist’, saying that he thinks it highly unlikely that any drug treatment, no matter how experimental, could turn anyone into a cannibal. “Cannibalism is a cultural, rather than a medical, phenomena,” insists K C Zorba, Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute of Offal. “Bearing in mind that many experimental treatments are now based around some kind of gene therapy, a much more likely side effect would be some kind of genetic regression on the part of the subject, back to a previous, more primitive, form.” Zorba insists that he has heard from reputable sources that the animal testing of one such therapy resulted in a domestic cat regressing into a sabre toothed tiger. “The serum used for the treatment was derived from a coelacanth, a living fossil, so I’m told, which caused this regression into another living fossil on the part of the cat,” muses the research scientist. “I think it entirely possible that if a similar treatment has been used on Trump, that he might have regressed to a Neanderthal form and is now running around the White House in a fur loincloth, smashing things with a club and dragging off women by their hair.” On reflection, Zorba admitted that his ‘reputable source’ might have been a nineteen fifties B-move, The Neanderthal Man, in which a scientist regresses into the titular character after cutting himself on a coelacanth tooth. “It could well have been the film I fell asleep watching the other night,” he concedes. “But I still maintain that it represents sound science.”

All of these theories, however, have been called into question by Dr Pierce McIntire, leading proctologist at the Montana Center for Rectal Reconstruction. “Look, all of this assumes that these treatments could turn someone taking them into a slavering crazed beast,” he told The Sleaze. “But in the case of Trump, who would be able to tell the difference?” He points out that the sort of Jekyll-Hyde transformations being speculated about traditionally involve someone being turned into the opposite of their normal character, rather than accentuating existing character traits. “I mean, mild mannered Dr Jekyll turns into horrible sadistic Mr Hyde,” he notes. “So surely Trump would be unlikely, under the influence of these drugs, to turn into an evil misogynistic bigot, when he’s already all of these things.” Montana’s top arse doctor believes it far more likely that any drug-related side effects would turn Trump into a philanthropic liberal feminist. “I think his supporters need to start getting worried for his health if they see him carrying a ‘Black Lives Matter’ placard, or making multi-million dollar contributions to charities helping refugees,” he says. “Personally, I don’t think that there is any drug with powerful enough side effects to achieve such a transformation.”

The whole controversy has, of course, simply confirmed the suspicions of many Trump supporters with regard to science. “Goddamnit, I always knew that science stuff was no good,” says Clyburn Clampett, an unemployed tyre regroover from Fuckle County, Tennessee. “You just trust them scientists and doctors with their damn education and schools – it fills their heads with all that nonsense that goes against the Bible! Besides, there’s nothin’ wrong with tried and tested natural remedies that folks have known about for centuries – there’s nothin that a good dose of rattlesnake venom or bull’s urine won’t cure!” Clampett and other Trump supporters firmly believe that the whole Covid pandemic has been a conspiracy to get at Trump himself. “Once those bogus doctors told him he had this fake disease, they could start injectin’ him with their poison, sayin’ it would cure him,” he insists. “Truth is, it will most likely turn him into a homosexual, or worse, black, Once they get vaccine of theirs, they’ll be injectin’ us all and turnin’ us all into black ass fuckers!”