TRUMP • Officials characterized hospital stay as a precaution
of the day, while suspending all in-person campaign events — a sharp departure from his approach in recent months when playing down the pandemic and f louting public health precautions became central components of his re-election bid.
Trump’s positive diagnosis and hospitalization reverberated through the nation’s capital Friday, with uncertainty, recrimination and the disease itself spreading from the West Wing to Congress and beyond.
In addition to Trump, the first lady and top adviser Hope Hicks, several other people who had been to the White House in recent days reported positive tests Friday, raising the prospect that the West Wing had become an epicenter of community spread for the deadly virus.
The mystery surrounding Trump’s condition Friday carried over from the previous day, when the White House was slow to publicly acknowledge Hicks’s positive test, which came before Trump attended a fundraiser in New Jersey. Hicks, one of Trump’s closest advisers, traveled with him on Air Force One and Marine One this week, before becoming ill.
Hicks was among a group of several people — including two U.S. senators, the president of Notre Dame, another White House aide and multiple journalists — who reported testing positive Friday after having spent time at the White House. Melania Trump said on Twitter that she had “mild symptoms but overall feeling good.”
Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also tested positive and was coughing on Friday. She was in the White House for debate preparation and in the Rose Garden on Saturday.
The spread of the virus in the West Wing jolted the country’s leadership just a month ahead of Election Day. Trump’s diagnosis and hospitalization had some advisers discussing the continuity of government on Friday, should the president’s condition grow worse. Vice President Mike Pence, who tested negative Friday, said he wished a swift recovery for Trump as he battles the coronavirus, which has killed more than 208,000 Americans and sickened millions more.
The president worked from the White House residence early on Friday, aides said, but canceled all sched
uled official events. He originally planned to go ahead with a call Friday with older Americans about the coronavirus but asked Pence to do it instead.
If his condition worsens, it’s possible Trump could consider a temporary surrender of powers by the president to the vice president, as clarified in the 25th Amendment. If the president is unable to perform his duties, including by disability or illness, he can inform the House speaker and Senate president, allowing the vice president to perform presidential duties.
The president could then resume his duties after providing “a written declaration to the contrary” to the congressional leaders, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The White House gave no public indication Trump was preparing to hand over power to Pence and said he would be working out of offices at Walter Reed.
The Trump campaign announced that events involving the president — including rallies scheduled this weekend in Florida and Wisconsin — have been postponed. Members of Trump’s family — who had been serving as his top surrogates on the campaign trail — also suspended their planned events.
Pence planned to resume
campaigning after his doctor wrote a memo saying that he did not need to quarantine despite his exposure to Trump. The doctor, Jesse Schonau, said Trump did not count as a “close contact” of Pence.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, tested negative Friday and intend to continue campaigning as well.
Trump’s early-morning announcement that he had contracted the disease
marked an extraordinary turn for the first family, coming as the president has escalated his campaign pace in an effort to catch Biden, who leads in national and key state polls.
Trump has mocked Biden for following public health guidelines, including avoiding crowds and wearing masks — measures the president has openly f louted during a string of mass rallies and public events in recent weeks.
Biden, who shared a debate stage with Trump on
Tuesday, said he hoped for the president’s swift recovery. He also used the opportunity to promote public health guidelines.
“I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands,” Biden said on Twitter after announcing his own negative test result.
The virus could further challenge Trump’s re-election bid because advisers were hoping to close the gap in upcoming weeks with an aggressive travel schedule and a message that the coronavirus had largely passed. Trump rallies planned for Friday in Florida and today in Wisconsin were scrapped.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tested positive for the virus Wednesday but didn’t reveal her diagnosis until after Trump announced he had the virus. McDaniel was last with Trump a week ago at a Sept. 25 fundraiser.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, all of whom attended Trump’s Rose Garden event Saturday announcing Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee, have tested positive as well. They were seen not wearing masks during the event.
A maskless White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters outside the White House on Friday that he and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino had tested negative.
Others in Trump’s immediate orbit who have also so far tested negative include daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, teenage son Barron Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Since late Tuesday, Trump has appeared with thousands at a rally in Minnesota, debated Biden onstage in Cleveland and met with donors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. He has also interacted with a coterie of aides, lawmakers and political advisers at the White House and on the road.
The White House has launched a contact-tracing program to f ind out how many additional people have tested positive.
Some aides are expected to stay at home for the foreseeable future, and presidential and political travel has been canceled, officials said.
The president’s campaign has also been impacted, with campaign manager Bill Stepien writing in a memo to staff that anyone who has been in contact with an infected person “should immediately begin self-quarantine.” Stepien himself was pictured traveling alongside Hicks this week.
Following Trump’s lead, many White House aides have eschewed masks, both in the West Wing presidential offices and on trips. Some could be seen wearing masks on Friday.