Trump returns to West Wing

President still defying guidelines for White House

With the White House at the epicenter of a fullscale coronavirus outbreak, many of President Donald Trump's aides were working from home Wednesday. One of his debate coaches, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, was in the hospital. Some Republican senators had shuttered their offices. And the Pentagon's military leadership was in quarantine.

But midafternoon - less than a week after testing positive for the potentially lethal virus - Trump returned to work in the West Wing, potentially endangering any staffers still in the building.

Trump's presence there sent yet another message to the public that illness has not chastened a president who has consistently eschewed masks and social distancing. His rush to get back to business as usual two days after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has been the most prominent example of the continued defiance of public health guidelines at the White House. It isn't the only one.

Although aides who have tested positive, including counselor Hope Hicks and press secretary Kayleigh Mcenany, have stayed home, aides who have continued to test negative have remained on the job. Among them were Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, senior adviser Jared Kushner, social media director Dan Scavino and political director Brian Jack, administration officials said.

Kushner was in contact with Christie, Hicks and others involved in prepping the president for last week's debate. Meadows has been in contact with virtually everyone in the president's orbit who is now sick. And at least four aides who traveled on Air Force One and Marine One with a maskless Trump on Thursday were in the White House this week, officials say.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence, who aides said has had several negative tests, debated with the Democratic vicepresidential nominee, Sen. Kamala Harris, D -Calif., at the University of Utah.

Pence attended the Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony to announce Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court; the event is suspected to be at the center of the White House outbreak. He was near others during the ceremony who have since tested positive and was in the Oval Office last week.