UPDATE 1845EST 2 Oct2020
The president is being moved to to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, long the home of a presidential suite and offices designed specifically for the use of POTUS, for “at least a few days.”
BREAKING: President Trump walks from the White House to Marine 1 as he departs for Walter Reed Medical Center. https://t.co/fsOmqt6C31 pic.twitter.com/dsCQpY8vHh
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) October 2, 2020
Original Post Follows:
The President announced overnight that he and the first lady have contracted Covid-19 virus.
President Trump and his wife, Melania, have contracted the novel coronavirus, he announced early Friday, after months in which he has often played down a pandemic that has killed more than 205,000 Americans and sickened millions more.
Trump, 74, was diagnosed hours after it became publicly known that Hope Hicks, a top Trump aide who traveled with him on Air Force One and Marine One this week, tested positive Thursday morning.
“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,” the president tweeted just before 1 a.m. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
The president’s physician, Sean P. Conley, wrote minutes later that Trump and his wife “are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.”
Hope Hicks, one of President Trump’s closest aides, tested positive for coronavirus on Oct. 1. She’s not the first White House official to contract the virus. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The president is expected to conduct official and political events from the residence — including a call on Friday with senior citizens about the coronavirus.The diagnosis is a jolt for the country’s leadership and had some advisers early Friday discussing the continuity of government should the president’s condition grow worse. The vice president was not known to be infected.
Trump’s early-morning announcement marked an extraordinary turn for the first family, coming little more than a month before Election Day and as Trump has escalated his campaign pace in an effort to catch Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who leads in national and key state polls. Trump, aides and voters say, trails largely because of his handling of the virus, which has dominated voters’ attention along with the economic collapse caused by pandemic shutdowns.
The plan for presidential quarantine is mostly known:
In a research note published earlier this year, John Hudak, a senior fellow and deputy director at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Effective Public Management, outlined some of the scenarios designed to “protect the president, the integrity of the office, and the continuity of government” in the event of a positive Covid-19 test.
Hudak said the test, in itself, would not be cause for emergency action. Instead, Trump “would likely be able to continue his everyday activities and manage the office either undisturbed or with mild challenges.”
It was expected to create some challenges for those around him, however. “The need for 24-hour Secret Service protection could put agents at risk for contracting it. But given modern technology, the president could quarantine and have remote or sufficiently distanced contact from most, if not all, aides, including the individual(s) who would be involved in the presidential daily brief,” Hudak said.
Trump’s positive coronavirus test does mean other precautions need to be taken, with those in the line of succession likely to be in limited contact with the president to reduce their chances of contracting the virus.
Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Grassley (who serves in the role of president pro tempore, making him third in line for the presidency), and members of the cabinet will all need to be isolated from the president, Hudak explained.
The President announced overnight that he and the first lady have contracted Covid-19 virus. Mostly, folks are getting waaaaaaay ahead of themselves here. First thing, the array of symptoms and level of serious vary widely from patient to patient, and we hope the president and first lady have the mild case and recover quickly. The government can function just fine without a president and has straight forward protocols for line of succession both for temporary transferal of power to the vice president which has happened many times, and in worse case scenarios of presidential incapacitation. No, there will not be a President Nancy Pelosi, despite what some corners of social media might be wishing for. Even if the VP assumes the duties of the office it would be temporary until the president resumes them, resigns, or God forbid dies. The rest of the line of succession past the VP assuming office, in which case they would immediately submit their own pick for VP to congress for starters, is a bridge best left cross only if needed.
But assuming the president does his quarantine and moves on from it, there is quite a bit of chaos to an already messy fall this will cause. A normal quarantine period would mean the president would not be available for the next scheduled presidential debate, for example. The Trump campaign has already canceled this week’s rally, along with all other events for the foreseeable future. With just over 30 days to go to election day, the president is now set to spend at least half of that isolated in the White House. The president, who has lobbed jabs at his opponent and fellow mid-70s aged man Joe Biden for “hiding in his basement” now has the prospect of his own campaign being all virtual.
2020, it appears, is not yet done with the plot twists.
Is anyone really surprised?Report
Utterly unsurprised: hubris invokes nemesis.Report
nope. Took longer then I expected frankly.Report
Exactly. I kinda figured this would have happened back in June, August at the latest.Report
1. As a matter of humanity I hope he recovers. I hope she recovers.
2. As a matter of process – yes the government can function without a President and he can certainly perform his executive functions virtually. That said, given what we know of the lax protocol in the WH generally for this, one has to be worried about the staff who make that possible. Sure there’s bench depth for everything up there, but there’s also a lot we don’t know about mid and low level staff infections.
3. As a matter of politics voting has already started. Even if the wildest of the wild conspiracy theories is true and this is some sort of planned October surprise (I don’t buy that), it may not help him any. Which is why I tend to believe that simple statistics have now caught up to him.Report
This. And I’ll even go a bit farther.
4.) It is tempting to blame Trump for this. I won’t do so. Yes, it is possible he acted irresponsibly. We know for damn sure that he encouraged others to act irresponsibly. But even folks who did act responsibly caught it. Maybe he could have avoided it, maybe not. To me, that doesn’t matter.
5.) I don’t buy the conspiracy theories. I have to imagine any doctor involved in such would lose their license or worse upon being found out. And let’s be real: it would be found out.
6.) At the end of the day, I want the outcome of this — of all of this — to be what is best for everyone. Chaos — even if that chaos might up the odds of my preferred candidate winning an election — would have all sorts of bad outcomes that I do not desire. I hope Trump and Melania’s cases are mild and they make speedy and full recoveries. Not because I have any particular respect for them but because I think it is best for everyone if we don’t see the chaos that could ensure from the situation being worse. That and what Pinky says below.
I naively thought that a global pandemic might help band us together as a nation. It didn’t. Quite the opposite. Weirdly, this moment may provide an opportunity to undo some of that. Let us respond with decency and let us think beyond our own visceral glee.Report
Dissent Strongly on #4 – His hubris for decades led to this moment. Refusing to be both open about and attentive to his health led to this. Believing that projecting an outdated and untenable vision of masculine strength led to this. Prioritizing his own TV ratings, his own prestige and his own power above all else led to this.Report
The White House was hoping to keep Hope Hicks’s infection secret; that included not telling people she’d been in contact with.
That’s a criminal level of irresponsibility, not that that’s anything new.Report
Are you nuts? She was diagnosed Thursday morning, which immediately started the contact tracing. By early Thursday afternoon, thousands of people were commenting on the news stories about her diagnosis. How many hours of privacy does a patient get these days?
It would help if modern journalists weren’t both insane – and stupid.Report
Contact tracing, like looking at the passenger list for Air Force One?
Trump went to a fundraiser in New Jersey after he knew he’d been exposed. Didn’t say a word, took no precautions. Kayleigh McEnany did a briefing after she knew she’d been exposed. Didn’t say a word, took no precautions.
They are garbage.Report
You must be watching CNN or network news, which takes all the facts of a story, tosses them in the trash can, and writes the opposite of whatever happened.
Whenever anyone in the White House tests positive, all their contacts are treated as exposed until they test negative, including the President on his flight to New Jersey. All White House personnel are tested daily, along with that day’s visitors.
The contact tracing from Hicks started immediately upon her diagnosis that morning. The prior day, Wednesday, she had been isolated on the return flight in case she did have Covid. Her diagnosis came in Thursday morning.
Secondly, being exposed doesn’t make you an instant spreader. The virus has to start multiplying in significant numbers. Until that happens, a person whose been exposed is about as infection as a piece of furniture.
And where would Kayleigh McEnany have been exposed to Hope Hicks, who’d been isolated on Wednesday before she even returned to Washington?Report
Isolated on an airplane. Sure.Report
Also,
Report
Are they waiting for a list of the tens of thousands of protesters who routinely violate protocols on an almost nightly basis?Report
In a televised press briefing this morning, White House physician Sean Conley read a prepared stated on the president’s condition. He said that Trump is “72 hours into this diagnosis.” That statement sets Wednesday morning as the time of diagnosis. See 19 second into this clip.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsReport
In a televised press briefing this morning, White House physician Sean Conley read a prepared stated on the president’s condition. He said that Trump is “72 hours into this diagnosis.” That statement sets Wednesday morning as the time of diagnosis. My first attempt to post went into moderation, perhaps because a link was included. The video is available on CSPAN.Report
Also:
Report
Maybe. Maybe not. We don’t know how he got it and if it could have been prevented. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. He has it. Now what?Report
I have no visceral glee, and at a personal level I hope they both make full recoveries.
But anyone who was pleased when Bin Laden was killed might reflect that 200,000 > 2,500.Report
Indeed. We should nuke China and bounce the rubble.Report
It’s a viral infection, not a staff infection.Report
October 2020 is going to make September 2020 look like August 2020.Report
I hope Biden is okay.Report
So do I and every other decent human being, because if you go down the road of wishing ill on people, you lose your humanity.Report
“So do I and every other decent human being, because if you go down the road of wishing ill on people, you lose your humanity.”
Quoted for truth.Report
Trump is being quarantined in a mansion with an international super model. If you’re going to get Covid, that’s how you want to do it. Last night I said “Why am I not quarantined with Hope Hicks? Why, why why?” Lots of people agreed.
In the first hour after he posted it, Trump’s tweet was getting about 50 comments a second. I didn’t manage to examine all of them, but from my cursory inspection, there were a few that didn’t seem to meet the highest standards of decency. ^_^Report
According to the Washington Post, Trump is being moved to Walter Reed. This is going to make the already monumental 2020 election into unprecedented territory. We never had a situation where a sitting President going for re-election was either very incapacitated or possibly even dead right before the election. In a parliamentary system, you can delay the elections to sort out chaotic scenarios like this. This really isn’t possible in our system of government, where the election date is set in stone. It couldn’t happen to a nicer political party.Report
Also now on CNN, ABC, CBS. Not Fox News yet.
Yeah this will throw multiple monkey wrenches at all sorts of things. Remember – Early voting and absentee ballots are already underway in many states.Report
Actually, in most Parliamentary systems it would be too close to the election date for it to move now, the writ authorising the election would most likely already be issued.
The reason a Parliamentary system would deal better with the death of a party leader is that you don’t elect a Prime Minister directly. If the PM (or Leader of the Opposition) died pre-election it would only affect their electorate, not the whole country. The party’s caucus could just appoint a new leader. I mean, it would be a big disruption for the party, but not the kind of constitutional hazard it is for the US.Report
In this case, we are saved by our clunky, antiquated electoral college system. People can still vote for the same slate of GOP electors; any of them selected will have until December 14th to figure out, in concert with the RNC, whom to vote for.
The usual GOP slate includes a VP candidate who absolutely should not be president (Nixon, Agnew, Quayle, Cheney, Palin, Ryan, Pence), so my guess is that if the party promotes Pence, the other slot will go to Louis Gohmert or Devin Nunes.Report
Quayle, Cheney, and Ryan would have been good presidents. I don’t know about Pence, but I wouldn’t have any discomfort voting for him for president this time around.Report
Cheney was one of the prime movers for invading Iraq including all the lying about intell.Report
But if blowing up then failing to rebuild backwards middle eastern hell holes at taxpayer expense is your thing he couldn’t be beat!Report
Not lying, just overconfidence.Report
when you repeatedly say ” our intelligences shows . . .” and it turns out later that it didn’t show . . . yeah thats pretty much lying.Report
No, it’s not anything remotely like lying. Saddam tricked the world. He thought he was safer if everybody, especially Iran, thought he had WMD’s, and so he planted all sorts of information indicating he had WMD’s.
He figured if he did fool us, at most he would get a few palaces hit with cruise missiles, with plenty of advance warning, and he could brag that he’d survived yet another war with the Americans. If he didn’t fool us, Iran would just roll into Baghdad because we’d blown up the bulk of his armored forces and decimated his army.Report
Also for institutionalized torture.Report
It turns out that this scenario is already considered in American electoral law. You vote for the dead candidate if you want. If the dead candidate wins, the National Committee of their party selects the replacement.Report
Ah, well that’s nice to know. Death is the one thing the US Constitution seems to handle pretty well.Report
The Founders didn’t waste much time on the issue because in their original conception, they figured that the choices for President would be the two or three best picks. If the best pick died, everybody would naturally go with the second best (who otherwise would’ve been Vice President), and if the second best pick died, well, we stick with the best pick, who would then nominate a Vice President once in office. How could a dispute possibly arise when you’re just picking between Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, or whoever? Almost everybody will get to take a turn as President.Report
The one thing? You better not let the Federal troops quartered in your house find out that you’re criticizing the government, especially on the Lord’s Day.Report
Saturday morning… Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) have tested positive. Chris Christie has tested positive.Report
Their ages are 49, 60, 65, and 58. They’ll all probably be fine.
There are 13 Senators over age 75. They are:
age – senator state (party)
87.28 – Dianne Feinstein CA (D)
87.04 – Chuck Grassley IA (R)
86.41 – Richard Shelby AL (R)
85.88 – Jim Inhofe OK (R)
84.45 – Pat Roberts KA (R)
80.25 – Lamar Alexander TN (R)
79.07 – Bernie Sanders VT (I)
78.62 – Mitch McConnell KY (R)
77.42 – Jim Risch ID (R)
77.00 – Ben Cardin MD (D)
76.67 – Mike Enzi WY (R)
76.51 – Angus King ME (I)
75.87 – Dick Durbin IL (D)Report
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and infect everyone and I wouldn’t lose voters.”Report
And now he’s pretty much doing just that.
Report
There’s actually no risk because he’s protesting, and top medical experts have assured us that protests won’t spread the disease.Report
Serious question – what are you going to do with your time when he dies?Report
“Same thing we do every night pinky, try and own the libs”Report
And now Kayle MacEnerny has tested positive.
One has to wonder how many more will take one for the team befor ethey have had enough.Report
Or, we will see that catching a case of the ‘vid isn’t a death sentence, and that this will reduce peoples fears.
Report
Interestingly, one analysis of Sweden’s slightly higher death rate compared to its Nordic neighbors is that the last two flu seasons in Sweden were extremely mild, so there were more extremely elderly people there for Covid to hit. I didn’t look at the detailed analysis, though, because it’s rather dark and in any event, the reduction of elderly Swedes just frees up more housing for young Muslim migrants.
That said, I think the American people will realize the critical importance of having a White House that’s no longer susceptible to Covid. A potential Biden team would not only refuse to be vaccinated because they don’t trust Trump, they’ll also have to hide from the virus until it rips through and kills them all. Harris won’t be eligible because she’ll have been the one jabbing everyone with a Covid infected needle, and will be dragged off to prison. Nancy is 80, so she’ll be gone, along with Chuck Grassley who is 87. The cabinet will likely have already resigned, but the Senate won’t have had time to confirm any Biden nominees, so the President will probably be Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr.
Voting Trump, who will be immune, as will his entire staff, entirely avoids such catastrophic consequences.Report
Or we’ll see that getting the rona isn’t a death sentence which people already know but understand that it could still be serious medical problem last for weeks/months, lead to hospitalization and spread to other people which is bad.Report
Yeah, keep that fear level UP!!!!Report
And now pumped full of drugs ordinary Americans can’t yet get he claims he’s going home tonight. He thinks staying the hospital makes him look weak. Being dead also make you look weak, but hey, you do you I guess.Report
Our president should have access to the finest treatment available at Walter Reed. That’s always been the president’s hospital. The health of the president is a national good. We’ve all learned that this disease varies a lot in severity. I’m not going to begrudge or second-guess anything.Report
Blargh, sorry… accidentally “reported” this comment and can’t figure out how to undo. Please disregard.Report
He’s been fighting to make all those drugs available to everybody, along with the vaccine. The deep state is fighting him at every turn. He’s had to use his full authority as President to override bureaucratic decisions just to make available some of the treatments we’re using.
The FDA wants to erect new hurdles for the vaccines and delay their availability to late next year, which will probably result in several hundred thousand more dead Americans – just to avoid risking one life. To me, that math is absurd. Would you kill 400,000 people to save one? Normally we’d call that willful mass murder.
Now of course the government can’t force someone to take the vaccine, but neither should they deny anyone the opportunity to take it voluntarily. My body, my choice, as they say.Report
The interesting thing about the Covid is that it doesn’t go away. So, like, the scandal that you absolutely could not believe in July? The one that you can’t remember now? Well, the Covid will still be something Trump caught in two weeks.
The thing that happened last week? I think it involved taxes? Nobody will really remember it in a week.
But they’ll remember the Covid.
One of the things that happened back in 2016 was Hillary Clinton having a medical event. Everybody and her sister explained how it wasn’t a big deal, people faint all the time, you have no idea what it’s like to stand outside in 80 degree weather, and so on. But… well. It’s never *GOOD* for your candidate to pass out at an event.
This is Trump’s Medical Event.
And it ain’t over. It ain’t close to over.Report
Especially since CNN in now reporting the Deputy Commandant of the Coast Guard is positive, and so the whole of the joint Chiefs are now quarantining.Report