BREAKING
Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus
The president’s result came after he spent months
playing down the severity of the outbreak that has killed more than 207,000 in
the United States and hours after insisting that “the end of the pandemic is in
sight.”
President Trump initially dismissed the threat of the
virus by likening it to the common flu.
Peter Baker
Maggie Haberman
By Peter
Baker and Maggie Haberman
Oct. 2,
2020
Updated
1:19 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON
— President Trump said early Friday morning that he and the first lady have
tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the nation’s leadership into
uncertainty and escalating the crisis posed by a pandemic that has already
killed more than 207,000 Americans and
devastated the economy.
“Tonight,
@FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter shortly
before 1 a.m. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately.
We will get through this TOGETHER!”
The
president’s physician said Mr. Trump was “well” without saying whether he was
experiencing symptoms and added that the president would stay isolated in the
White House for now.
“The
president and first lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at
home within the White House during their convalescence,” the physician, Sean P.
Conley, said in a statement without saying how long that would be. “Rest
assured I expect the president to continue carrying out his duties without
disruption while recovering, and I will keep you updated on any future
developments.”
Other aides
to the president would not say whether he was experiencing symptoms, but people
at the White House noticed that his voice sounded raspy on Thursday, although
it was not clear that it was abnormal for him, especially given the number of
campaign rallies he has been holding lately.
Mr. Trump
received the test result after one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, became
infected, bringing the virus into his inner circle and underscoring the
difficulty of containing it even with the resources of a president. Mr. Trump
has for months played down the severity of the virus and told a political
dinner just Thursday night that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”
Mr. Trump’s
positive test result could pose immediate difficulties for the future of his
campaign against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic
challenger, with just 33 days before the election on Nov. 3. Even if Mr. Trump,
74, remains asymptomatic, he will have to withdraw from the campaign trail and stay
isolated in the White House for an unknown period of time. If he becomes sick,
it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all.
Even if he
does not become seriously ill, the positive test could prove devastating to his
political fortunes given his months of diminishing the seriousness of the
pandemic even as the virus was still ravaging the country and killing about
1,000 more Americans every day. He has repeatedly predicted the virus “is going
to disappear,” asserted that it was under control and insisted that the country
was “rounding the corner” to the end of the crisis. He has scorned scientists,
saying they were mistaken on the severity of the situation.
Mr. Trump
has refused for months to wear a mask in public on all but a few occasions and
repeatedly questioned their effectiveness while mocking Mr. Biden for wearing
one. Trailing in the polls, the president in recent weeks increasingly held
crowded campaign events in defiance of public health guidelines and sometimes
state and local governments.
When he
accepted the nomination on the final day of the Republican National Convention,
he invited more than 1,000 supporters to the South Lawn of the White House and
has held multiple rallies around the country since, often with hundreds and
even thousands of people jammed into tight spaces, many if not most without
masks.
A positive
test will undercut his effort to change the subject away from a pandemic that
polls show most Americans believe he has mishandled and onto political terrain
he considers more favorable. Mr. Trump has sought to focus voter attention
instead on violence in cities, his Supreme Court nomination, mail-in ballots
and Mr. Biden’s relationship with liberals.
Aside from
the campaign, the symbolism of an infected president could rattle governors and
business owners trying to assess when and how to reopen or keep open shops,
schools, parks, beaches, restaurants, factories and other workplaces. Eager to
restore a semblance of normal life before the election, Mr. Trump has dismissed
health concerns to demand that schools reopen, college football resume play and
businesses resume full operation.
In his
eighth decade of life, Mr. Trump belongs to the age category deemed most
vulnerable to the virus. Eight out of every 10 deaths attributed to it in the
United States have been among those 65 and older.
Mr. Trump
has been resistant to permitting details of his health to be made public,
raising questions about his overall condition. He made an unannounced trip in
November to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that prompted
speculation that he had an undisclosed medical ailment, but the White House
insisted that he simply underwent routine tests, without revealing what they
were or what they showed.
But while
Mr. Trump has been reported to have high cholesterol and tips the scale at 243
pounds, which is considered obese for his height, the president’s doctor
pronounced Mr. Trump in “very good health” last year after his last full
medical checkup. And, unlike many of those who have succumbed to the virus, he
will have the best medical care available.
A variety
of people around Mr. Trump were previously infected by the virus, including
most recently Robert C. O’Brien, his national security adviser who had a mild
case before returning to work in August. Others infected include Kimberly
Guilfoyle, his son’s girlfriend; a White House valet; Katie Miller, Vice
President Mike Pence’s press secretary; as well as some Secret Service agents,
campaign advance workers and a Marine in the president’s helicopter unit.
Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate and political ally of
Mr. Trump’s, died of the coronavirus in July after attending the president’s campaign
rally in Tulsa, Okla., where Mr. Cain, like many in the arena, was seen not
wearing a mask at least part of the time.
Mr. Trump
has repeatedly expressed confidence in public about his own health, saying he
was not concerned about being exposed despite his various close calls. “I’m on
a stage that’s very far away, and so, I’m not at all concerned,” he said last
month, brushing off worries about crowded rallies.
Behind the
scenes, though, the self-described germophobe was angry in the spring that his
valet, who is among those who serve him food, had not been wearing a mask
before testing positive, according to people in touch with him. Mr. Trump
privately expressed irritation with people who got too close to him.
According
to the president, he began taking the hydroxychloroquine anti-malaria drug
proactively around this time and later said it caused no adverse effects. In
the days after Ms. Miller’s positive test, Mr. Pence opted to stay physically
away from Mr. Trump to avoid a possible exposure, while three top public health
officials, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who is on the White House’s
coronavirus task force, went into some form of self-quarantine.
The White
House ordered some employees to work from home and those who came to work to
wear masks except when sitting at their desks an appropriate distance from
their colleagues. Just as Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence were being tested every day,
those coming into proximity to them were subject to daily tests as well, while
other White House employees had tests every several days. But those protocols
were soon relaxed and most White House officials were rarely seen wearing
masks, at least when the president was present.
While the
coronavirus is much deadlier than the flu, the vast majority of people infected
by it recover, especially if there is no underlying condition, but the threat
climbs with age. If Mr. Trump becomes symptomatic, it could take him weeks to
recover.
Under the
25th Amendment, a medically incapacitated president has the option of temporarily
transferring power to the vice president and can reclaim his authority whenever
he deems himself fit for duty.
Since the
amendment was ratified in 1967, presidents have done so only three times. In
1985, President Ronald Reagan underwent a colonoscopy and briefly turned over
power to Vice President George Bush, although he did not explicitly cite the
amendment in doing so. President George W. Bush did invoke the amendment twice
in temporarily turning over power to Vice President Dick Cheney during
colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007.
Under the
Presidential Succession Act, if both Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence were unable to
serve, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California would step in. In the spring, the
White House said that it had no plan for such an eventuality. “That’s not even
something that we’re addressing,” said Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press
secretary. “We’re keeping the president healthy. We’re keeping the vice
president healthy and, you know, they’re healthy at this moment and they’ll
continue to be.”
There is a
long history of presidents falling seriously ill while in office, including
some afflicted during epidemics. George Washington was feared close to death
amid an influenza epidemic during his second year, while Woodrow Wilson became
sick during Paris peace talks after World War I with what some specialists and
historians believe was the influenza that ravaged the world from 1918 through
1920.
Four
presidents have died in office of natural causes: William Henry Harrison,
Zachary Taylor, Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt, while Wilson
endured a debilitating stroke and Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack in
his first term and a stroke in his second. Four others were assassinated in
office: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F.
Kennedy.
But such
health crises in the White House have been rarer in recent times. Since Reagan
was shot in 1981, no president has been known to confront a life-threatening
condition while in office.
Peter Baker
is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last four presidents
for The Times and The Washington Post. He also is the author of six books, most
recently "The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker
III." @peterbakernyt • Facebook
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