The funny part is that he thinks NBC is bringing him back.
I am betting that he does come back and tries to claim to have just been suffering from exhaustion and/or flu.
Bet you are right.
He has lived in a fantasy world for so long he’s incapable of confronting hard truth and reality.
I am thinking his last wild shot, and maybe NBC’s too, will be to claim PTSD...he has just worked so hard and under such terrific pressure (he is after all the guiding light of America) that he has understandably slipped just this once.
Of course now we are on a half-dozen or so documentable lies...they can’t bring him back except perhaps as a sort of therapeutic example of high-level burnout.