On a warm August night, President Donald Trump gave an internal press conference to his golf club in Bedminster. The president didn’t dress in a mask. No more than several dozen members of the club, who were at the back of the room.
Nearly 160,000 Americans had already died from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One reporter asked: Why were the president and his followers unmasked?
“No, they don’t have to,” Trump said, as many members of the crowd booed the reporter. “It’s a political activity. “
Fifty-five days later, Trump’s status at the same New Jersey golf club for some other political activity, again, was not wearing masks. Again, the maximum number of participants didn’t either.
However, this time everything is different. The number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States had exceeded 200,000 and more than 7 million Americans had tested positive for the disease.
Among them, Hope Hicks, one of Trump’s closest advisers. White House officials learned of his diagnosis around 1 p. m. October 1, when Trump was departing for Bedminster aboard the Presidential Marine One helicopter.
New Jersey amid Trump’s months effort to spread incorrect information about the coronavirus. At his August press convention in Bedminster, the president said of COVID-19, he will “disappear. “
That was not true. Today, New Jersey is in the midst of a new problem: a series of imaginable “super-widespread” occasions when Trump, his entourage, and supporters would have possibly inflamed many more people by ignoring the scientists’ recommendation. attended the president’s fundraiser at the golf club on Oct. 1, according to the New Jersey Department of Health, as well as 19 club workers. The fundraiser included a panel discussion and VIP reception hosted by Trump, either internally, and an outdoor reception.
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Few others in the internal or external parts of the occasion wearing masks, according to interviews with attendees through various media outlets.
People who have attended outdoor events without a mask can be fine, as long as they stay at least 1. 80 meters away from everyone, said Stephanie Silvera, epidemiologist and public fitness professor at Montclair State University. But everyone who attended the internal quantities . . . even the few who wore masks, without delay, will be quarantined for the next 14 days and examined for COVID-19.
“I was very concerned without delay” when he learned of the occasion last Friday, Silvera said. “Not just for the other people who decided to attend, but for the other people who paint on those occasions and who don’t necessarily have the signature to ask. The other people around them to wear a mask.
As the COVID-19 epidemic hits the inner sanctity of the White House, it also poses turmoil for New Jersey’s political establishment. At a news convention Monday afternoon, Governor Phil Murphy sent his for a speedy recovery to the president and first lady Melania Trump. they also tested positive.
Moments later, Murphy criticized Trump’s resolve to travel to New Jersey for a political occasion hours after his close adviser became ill.
Murphy’s management officials said they had obtained data that too many people were allowed to attend the event. Another 150 people, or 25% of a place’s capacity, are not allowed to be inside under the regulations explained through a Murphy decree to stop the spread of whether Trump’s fundraising violated state guidelines, said Murphy, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal will investigate.
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“It’s transparent that the president and his people acted recklessly when they came to New Jersey in the first place,” said Murphy, who said the occasion “put lives at risk. “
Meanwhile, fundraising on the golf course, combined with other recent occasions in the Trump campaign, threatens the fitness of New Jersey’s Republican political establishment. Former Gov. Chris Christie attended a time at the White House Rose Garden on September 26, where Trump officially announced Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court nominee. Christie, known for years in New Jersey politics as a consumer meat press, captured in images and videos of the occasion, bringing hugs and applause to the Republican actors in power.
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Two days later, Christie was back in the White House, helping Trump prepare for his debate against Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. Christie later said later in the week that no one wore a mask in the sessions. Christie is also obese and suffers from asthma, another threat point for coronavirus patients, Silvera said.
Christie tweeted that she had mild symptoms but that she “felt good. “
In consultation with my doctors, I checked into Morristown Medical Center this afternoon. Although I feel smart and only have mild symptoms, because of my asthma history, we thought this was a vital precautionary measure.
Perhaps no member of New Jersey’s political elegance has progressed higher in the presidential world than Bill Stepien. A long-time member of Christie’s inner circle, Stepien spoke many times in his testimony of Bridgegate, in which David Wildstein, Christie’s other confidant, pleaded to blame two counts of conspiracy.
Stepien, however, emerged unscathed from controversy. After joining White House staff as Trump’s political adviser in 2016, Stepien rose in July to lead Trump’s re-election campaign.
But on Friday, the White House showed that Stepien had done the COVID-19 test and that he would be quarantined.
Kellyanne Conway, a long-time Republican political activist and Alpine resident who served as Trump’s adviser for four years, also resigned in August; however, she and the president remained united, as Conway also attended the Rose Garden rite for Judge Barrett.
As COVID-19 continues to spread to the White House, other members of Trump’s inner circle with ties to New Jersey have been forced to be tested. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser to the president, born at Livingston and attended Frisch School, one of the best personal yeshiva schools in Paramus. Kushner and Ivanka Trump attended the first presidential debate in Cleveland, organized through the Cleveland Clinic.
Both entered the site of the masked debate, clinic staff told reporters after the occasion, but Kushner and his wife took off their masks after sitting down. When officials were encouraged to upgrade their mask, they both refused. A few days later, Kushner over to board Marine One for Bedminster, along with the president. He proposed boarding after White House staff learned of Hope Hicks’ positive diagnosis.
Other members of management with roots in New Jersey have also required recent testing for COVID-19 Wilbur Ross, the secretary of commerce, was born in Weehawken and raised in North Bergen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, graduated from the Princeton University Larry Kudlow grew up in Englewood, attended Princeton High School and became a longtime CNBC television personality before joining management as an economic adviser. Jason Miller, Trump’s political adviser, has a political strategist for New Jersey politicians. , adding State Senator Joe Kyrillos, who unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate in 2012.
Everyone reported that they had negative for coronavirus.
Despite the long list of New Jersey political actors now in the midst of COVID-19’s internal contagion in the White House, and the encouragement of public fitness experts, who added Silvera de Montclair State, to get tested, some of those who attended the Bedminster fundraiser do not show Katherine Hermes lives near the golf club He told The Washington Post, and paid $2,600 to attend Trump’s last occasion there.
“Why are you testing me?” Hermes told ABC News, “I wasn’t even close to the president. “
Christopher Maag is a columnist at NorthJersey. com. To get an unlimited number of your exclusive attitude about other People’s most engaging and New Jersey experiences, subscribe to or activate your virtual account today.
Email: maag@northjersey. com Twitter: @Chris_Maag