TRUMP EVENTS LACKED PRECAUTIONS

Virus may have spread at ceremony for court nominee

The ceremony in the White House Rose Garden last Saturday was a triumphal flashback to the Before Times — before public health guidelines restricted mass gatherings, before people were urged to wear masks and socially distance.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump welcomed more than 150 guests as the president formally introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett, his nominee for the Supreme Court. A handful of Republican senators were there, including Mike Lee of Utah, who hugged and mingled with guests. So was the Rev. John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame, who left his Indiana campus where a coronavirus outbreak had recently occurred to celebrate an alumna’s nomination.

Spirits were high. Finally, Trump was steering the national discussion away from the coronavirus pandemic — which had already killed more than 200,000 people in the United States and was still raging — to more favorable terrain, a possible conservative realignment of the Supreme Court.

Attendees were so confident that the contagion would not invade their seemingly safe space at the White House that, according to Jenkins, after guests tested negative that day they were instructed they no longer needed to cover their faces. The no-mask mantra applied indoors as well. Cabinet members, senators, Barrett family members and others mixed unencumbered at tightly packed, indoor receptions in the White House’s Diplomatic Room and Cabinet Room.

Five days later, that feeling of invincibility was punctured. On Thursday, counselor to the president Hope Hicks, who reported feeling symptoms during a trip with the president to Minnesota on

Wednesday, tested positive for the virus. That evening, Trump announced that he and the first lady also had tested positive and began isolating inside the White House residence.

On Friday, Lee and Jenkins announced that they, too, had tested positive, as did Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who was at the ceremony, and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who had recently spent time with the president, including at an indoor fundraiser last week. At least three journalists who had been at White House events in the past week also reported testing positive on Friday. Former senior counselor Kellyanne Conway announced Friday night that she, too, tested positive. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said he was bracing for additional infections among administration officials.

As White House officials work to trace the origin of the outbreak, they have become concerned about a series of events Saturday: Barrett’s

Rose Garden announcement and the private indoor receptions surrounding it. It is not publicly known whether the Rose Garden announcement of Barrett’s nomination was a superspreader event

A feeling of invincibility from the virus was pervasive. Guests were administered rapid coronavirus tests upon arrival and waited in a room wearing masks, according to Jenkins, the Notre Dame president. Then, he wrote in a statement Friday, “we were notified that we had all tested negative and were told that it was safe to remove our masks.”

Once escorted outside, guests mingled in the Rose Garden shaking hands and hugging, then took seats positioned closely together. Jenkins said he regretted “my mistake” of not wearing a mask and shaking hands at the event.

The mixing continued at indoor receptions to celebrate Barrett, which two White House officials said Friday have caused deep concern within the president’s circle.

They were attended by Cabinet members, senators, Barrett’s family and other guests.

On the Friday night before the Barrett announcement, Trump attended an indoor fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, along with McDaniel, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia and a coterie of Trump aides and allies.

McDaniel, who then spent two days with the president before beginning to show symptoms, tested positive for the virus on Wednesday. She told the president about her infection on Friday morning, although she had notified some White House officials before then, according to two people familiar with the situation. She attempted to reach Trump sooner but did not get through to him and spoke instead with a White House doctor.

Trump’s non-socially distanced interactions continued throughout the week. After the Barrett announcement, Trump traveled to Middletown, Pa., to hold an evening campaign rally. On

Sunday, he played golf at his private club in Northern Virginia, held a news conference at the White House and hosted a reception for Gold Star parents.

All the while, Trump held debate preparation meetings with Christie, Hicks, Conway, personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and a handful of other advisers.

Trump traveled Tuesday afternoon to Cleveland for his first debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The candidates’ podiums stood 12 feet 8 inches apart, according to Frank Fahrenkopf, chairman of the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

Trump’s schedule continued apace Wednesday and Thursday. When he spoke about the virus in the Rose Garden on Monday afternoon, the president all but declared victory over the virus.

“Tremendous progress is being made,” he said. “I say, and I’ll say it all the time: We’re rounding the corner. And, very importantly, vaccines are coming, but we’re rounding the corner regardless.”