By Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller – Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump said Friday morning that he and first Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus, a surprising announcement that plunges the country into greater uncertainty just a month before the presidential election.
Trump, who has spent much of the year minimizing the risk of a virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans, said he and Ms. Trump were quarantined. The White House doctor said the president continues to perform his duties “uninterruptedly” while recovering.
However, it was certain that Trump’s diagnosis would have a destabilizing effect on Washington and around the world, raising questions about the extent to which the virus had spread to the highest levels of the U. S. government. Hours before Trump announced he had contracted the virus, the White House. said a senior official who had traveled with him during the week he tested positive.
“Tonight, FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process,” Trump tweeted just before 1 a. m. M. We will receive through this ENSEMBLE!».
Vice President Mike Pence tested negative for the virus on Friday morning and “stays healthy,” his spokesman said.
Trump last realized through reporters at the White House Thursday night and didn’t seem visibly ill. Trump is 74 years old, putting him in a great threat of serious headaches from a virus that has inflamed more than 7 million people in the country.
The president’s doctor said in a note that Trump and the first of 50 years “are fine right now” and “plan to stay home in the White House while they recover. “
The diagnosis marks a severe blow to a president who desperately seeks to convince the American public that the worst thing about the pandemic is him, at best, if he does not expand any symptoms, possibly coming with fever, cough and breathing difficulties. this will likely force him to abandon the electoral crusade a few weeks before the election and will take part at the time of the presidential debate, scheduled for October 15 in Miami, in doubt.
Trump’s handling of the pandemic has already been a major flash point in his run against Democrat Joe Biden, who spent much of the summer outdoors during the election crusade and at home in Delaware because of the virus. Biden has resumed a more active crusade since then. hours, but with small and socially remote crowds. He also wears a mask in public, which is why Trump mocked him during Tuesday night’s debate.
“I don’t wear a mask like him,” Trump said of Biden. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. Maybe he’ll only talk two hundred yards from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen. . “
There was no immediate comment from Biden’s crusade on whether the former vice president had been tested since he gave the impression in the debate with Trump or whether he was taking on more security protocols. Trump and Biden didn’t shake hands in the debate, but they stayed out of it. a mask about 3 meters to the side of the 90-minute event.
World leaders presented the president and the first circle of family members with their most productive desires after their diagnosis, as governments used their instances to remind their citizens to wear masks and practice social estification.
On Friday, Trump was scheduled to get an intelligence briefing, attend a fundraiser and conduct another election demonstration in Sanford, Florida. But shortly after 1 a. m. , the White House published a revised calendar with a single event: a phone call about “COVID -19 for vulnerable seniors. “
Trump’s announcement came hours after confirming that Hope Hicks, one of his oldest and most trusted aides, had been diagnosed with the virus on Thursday. Hicks began reveling in mild symptoms while flying home from a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday night, according to a report. management official who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal useful information. He walked away from the other passengers aboard the plane, the user said.
Hicks was with Trump and other senior officials aboard Marine One and Air Force One in the direction of the rally and accompanied the president to Tuesday’s presidential debate in Cleveland, along with members of the Trump family. Trump’s contingent stripped his mask of debate, in violation of the rules of the place.
Several White House members have already tested positive for the virus, adding Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and one of the president’s private aides.
But Trump has minimized considerations about his non-public vulnerability, even after White House staff and their allies have been exposed and ill. Given that the coronavirus first gave the impression this year, Trump has refused to comply with the fundamental rules of public aptitude, adding the following issued through his own management, such as dressing up in public and practicing social estgnation, he continued to organize election rallies that attracted thousands of supporters, occasionally without a mask.
“I didn’t feel any vulnerability,” he told reporters in May.
The news will surely shake up an already shaken country that still suffers with how to safely reopen the economy without causing virus transmission. The White House has access to near-unlimited resources, adding a constant source of rapid results tests, and has not yet shut down the president’s safety, which raised doubts about how the rest of the country will be able to protect its workers, academics, and the public as businesses and schools reopen. The futures of justice came here to the news of Trump’s diagnosis.
There are still questions about why Trump took so long to verify and why he and his assistants continued to go to the paintings and after Hicks got sick. Trump traveled to New Jersey on Thursday for a fundraiser, which could expose participants to the virus. Dan Scavino and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who were originally scheduled to sign up for the trip, were replaced at the last minute by other attendees.
McEnany informed the press Thursday morning when Hicks presumed he had the virus, but did not give a public word about the case near the president.
It is not known where the Trumps and Hicks hit the virus, however, in their interview with Fox, Trump recommended that it possibly have spread through a member of the military or police.
“It’s very, very complicated when you’re with infantrymen or law enforcement officers, and they come to you, and they need to kiss you, and they need to kiss you,” he said, “because we did a smart task for them. . And you’re getting close. And things happen. »
On Friday, several members of Trump’s closet were reviewing COVID-19. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the fourth in the line of the presidency, tested negative at a time before landing in Croatia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also scored negative, while Attorney General William Barr was scheduled to check a check on Friday morning.
The White House has begun to institute a test regime for the president’s most sensible aides after positive past cases near the president. Anyone in the vicinity of the president or vice president is also evaluated, adding journalists.
However, since the early days of the pandemic, experts have questioned the protection and fitness protocols in the White House and asked why no more was being done to protect the commander-in-chief. opposed it, and first resisted the test.
Trump is far from the world’s first leader to test positive for the virus, which in the past had inflamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent a week in the hospital, adding three nights in intensive care. Silvio Berlusconi was hospitalized last month while fighting what he called a “hellish” case of COVID-19.
While lately there’s no indication that Trump is seriously ill, positive control raises questions about what would happen if he didn’t deserve it because of an illness.
The 25th Amendment to the Constitution defines the procedures by which the president would possibly declare “incapable of fulfilling the powers and duties” of the presidency. If I made the call, Trump would send a written memorandum to the pro-tempo president of the Senate. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. Pence would serve as interim president until Trump issued “a brief that says otherwise. “
The vice president and a majority of the Cabinet or other framework established by law would possibly also demand the president unable to fulfill the powers and tasks of his workplace, in which case Pence would “promptly assume the powers and tasks of the workplace to act. “president. ” Until Trump can provide a letter to the contrary.
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Kevin Freking, editor of the Associated Press, contributed to the report.
By Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller
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