Trump, first lady test positive for coronavirus

[Mossling]

https://www.fox23.com/news/trending/cor ... KFRXTTYUQ/

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, the president announced on Twitter early Friday.

The news came hours after Hope Hicks, one of Trump’s closest aides, tested positive for the virus Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino tweeted early Friday that President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are "doing great."

"Here's to a speedy recovery, with prayers and much love, on behalf of everyone down here in the West Wing," Scavino tweeted.

[charon]

Well, assuming he survives, he won't lose the election if he can't participate in it. Which means he can spend the rest of his life telling everybody he would have won :-)

[toucana]

News reports from BBC and CNN indicate that the likely vector of infection was presidential aide Hope Hicks who travelled with the presidential party aboard AF1 both to and back from the presidential debate in Ohio on Tuesday night.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54381848

News that Hope Hicks had been taken ill on Wednesday, and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday was apparently leaked to the press, which rather forced today’s disclosure about the POTUS and his wife.

The president’s physician Dr. Sean Conley has issued a statement saying that the president is well and continuing with his duties while in quarantine - but there hasn’t been any statement on whether the VP Mike Pence has tested either negative or positive for COVID-19 since the president’s result was confirmed.

President Trump, who is 74 years old and obese according to his most recent medicals, is in a higher risk group of COVID-19 patients. He is five times more likely to require hospiital treatment, and up to ninety times more likely to die if his condition deteriorates to the point where he requires ICU treatment.

Todays news changes both the trajectory of the presidential election, and the calculus of power in no uncertain manner.

i. If president Trump and vice-president Mike Pence both became too ill to continue with their duties, then under the succession protocols, the powers of the presidency would pass to the Speaker of the House - which is Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

ii. The president won’t be able to carry on with campaign rallies or any more presidential debates whilst in quarantine which will last for at least another 10 days. Given that there are only 33 days left until the election, this is will have a considerable influence on polling trends and vote swings.

iii. If the president dies, or remains critically ill to the point where the 25th Amendment is in play because he is incapacitated, then the GOP would be forced to nominate a replacement presidental candidate just before an election. This has never previously happened, and there are no precedents to follow.

Probably the nearest one was the death of William Henry Harrison who became the 9th president of the USA in 1840, but reportedly caught pneumonia while attending his own inauguration in bitterly cold weather on the 4th March, and died just 31 days later on 4th April 1841.

William Harrison was the first victim of what became known as ‘The Curse of Tippecanoe’ - A sequence of presidents who all died in office after being elected in years evenly divisble by 20, or that ended in a zero. The curse was supposedly laid by a native american medicine man after a tribal leader was killed in an Indian war in which Harrison was the commander.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Tippecanoe

The list included William Harrison (1840), Abraham Lincoln (1860), James Garfield (1880), William Mckinley (1900), Warren Harding (1920), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940) and John F. Kennedy (1960). Ronald Reagan who was elected in 1980 is one POTUS to have bucked this trend. He was shot in an assassination attempt in 1981, but survived.

ETA - G.W Bush was also elected in 2000 and survived.

[toucana]

Pairs of ‘Doomsday planes’ were seen flying along both coasts of the USA early this morning

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8798317/Plane-spotters-pair-E-6B-Mercury-planes-Trump-announced-COVID-diagnosis.html

Plane spotters observed the pairs of Boeing E-6B Mercury military command planes overflying both Washington DC and the Oregon coast, and the planes were doing so with their radar transponders switched on so they could be tracked

These flying command posts are part of the SAC (Strategic Air Command) ‘Alice’ and 'Looking Glass’ fleets. They exist to relay instructions from the National Command Authority to the US Navy fleets of ballistic missile submarines during DEFCON 3 and higher nuclear threat alerts.

Readers of Walter Prochnau’s novel Trinity’s Child (1983), or its HBO film version By Dawn’s Early Light (1990) will be familiar with their role and purpose.

US Strategic Command told DailyMail.com that the timing was merely a coincidence and that the exercise had been planned in advance. 

Tim Hogan, an American open-source intelligence practitioner, says it is not mere chance they the planes were airborne just minutes before news broke that Trump was infected.

'There's an E-6B Mercury off the east coast near DC. I looked because I would expect them to pop up if he tests positive,' he tweeted.

'It's a message to the small group of adversaries with [submarine-launched ballistic missiles] and [intercontinental ballistic missiles].' 

[Mossling]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ence-biden

The date of US elections is fixed in law – going back to 1845 – and elections have gone ahead through war and crisis. Trump has himself been dismissed by Republicans for even suggesting a postponement because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The law says US voters must go to the polls on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November every four years. This year that date is 3 November.
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It would take an act of Congress – ie approved by by both the House and Senate – to change that.
What’s the worst-case scenario?

There are potentially many. Biden has also been close to Trump recently and would be in a high-risk group, but he, like Pence, has said he has tested negative.

Both are on the ballot and would cause issues if ill or incapacitated. Postponements, selection of new candidates and reissuing of ballots might involve not only new legislation and potentially the US supreme court but the parties themselves having to agree mechanisms as well.

[Serpent]

I watched this on the news. After a mind-numbing, seemingly interminable stare at a stationary khaki helicopter, while news announcers asked everybody they could conceivably reach what might conceivable happen in every conceivable eventuality, while having absolutely zero fresh information about reality, the somnolent Marine behind the khaki helicopter suddenly sprang to attention. There was some ambiguous movement in the fuzzy background, and finally, the reasonably convincing masked body-double walked at a measured pace, unstretchered and unassisted, toward the helicopter, made some unTrumlike minimal hand-gestures at the cameras, and boarded. Afterward, attendees discovered a serendipitously bin Ladenesque video message from ... well, somebody. It wouldn't take that long to prep Alec Baldwin, so they must have roped in a loyal amateur.

[toucana]

The Washington Post has published a story which suggests that the decision to admit president Trump to Walter Reed military hospital was taken earlier rather than later, because there were real fears that he might deteriorate if they delayed any longer, and be incapable of walking out to the helicopter on his own.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-health-risk-covid/2020/10/02/6e6f5af4-04b4-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html

The optics of the POTUS being wheeled out across the south lawn on a gurney or in a wheelchair would not have been good.

According to the medical bulletins being issued by the WH, president Trump is now receiving his *second* course of experimental anti-viral medications. The new course of Remdisivir at Walter Reed follows a previous course of Regeneron which apparently didn’t help.

From the growing numbers of WH staff and top level GOP figures reporting that they too are all testing positive for COVID-19, it has become clear that the focal superspreader event which caused this outbreak was a Rose Garden gathering last Saturday to formally nominate Amy Coney Barrett as president Trump’s pick for the SCOTUS vacancy caused by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Almost none of the participants at this Rose Garden celebration were wearing masks or paying any attention to social distancing recommendations. The list of those now also reporting positive COVID-19 results is quite impressive and sobering:

- Kellyanne Conway who was outed on TikTok by her own teenage daughter Claudia.
- Campaign manager Bill Stepien,who only just replaced the recently arrested Brad Parscale.
- Chris Christie, a leading GOP strategist who prepped president Trump for the Ohio debate.
- Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah Senate Judiciary Committee)
- Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee)
- Ronna McDaniel (RNC Chair)
- John Jenkins (Notre Dame president)
- Three un-named journalists in the WH press pool who covered the Rose Garden event.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/2/1982878/-Outbreak-at-the-White-House-Positive-Negative-and-TBD

The inclusion of two prominent GOP Senators Mike Lee and Thom Tillis who happen to be members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, throws an unexpected spanner into the wheels of Republican plans to install Amy Coney Barrett as the new Justice in the SCOTUS. The chairman Senator Lindsey Graham only had a 12-10 majority on that committee to start with. With two of the Republican members now hors-de-combat and in quarantine, there is almost no chance of installing the new Justice before the election.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/02/politics/mike-lee-tests-positive-covid/index.html

One of the few people not affected by this latest outbreak ironically is Amy Coney Barrett herself. She and her husband both contracted and subsequently recovered from COVID-19 earlier this summer.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/10/02/supreme-court-nominee-amy-coney-barrett-contracted-coronavirus-this-summer/#318b59d3fe58

[toucana]

Laurie Garrett who won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1996 for her writing on the Ebola outbreak in Zaire, discusses the super-spreader event in the Rose Garden last Saturday in some detail with Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzall5wZsxI

She makes the point that even though Amy Coney Barrett may have thought she was fully recovered from COVID-19, that she could in fact have continued to be an asymptomatic ‘shedder’ of the virus without realising it.

[TheVat]

Much to gnaw on here. Thanks, Toucana, for all the multiple sourced coverage, as well as the Tippecanoe background.

On a personal and purely anecdotal note, I will add that I've noticed a strong correlation between obnoxious personality and strong immune system. If my observed correlation reflects any real relationship, then I expect the POTUS to be recovered in a few days (and, of course, boasting on how his recovery is the most astounding in recorded history). (perhaps he will compare himself to Teddy Roosevelt, who was shot in the chest while delivering a speech and then finished his speech)

[toucana]

According to an article by Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair, WH sources disclosed that president Trump's temperature spiked at 103F on Friday evening, and he was given supplemental oxygen before transport to hospital. He had been suffering from some heart palpitations as well.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/this-is-spiraling-out-of-control-allies-panic-about-trumps-hospital-stay-as-white-house-deflects

A number of these symptoms are consistent with the onset of bilateral pneumonia. A six week period of convalescence is usually required as I recall.

[toucana]

President Trump took an impromptu motor car trip outside Walter Reed Medical centre today to wave to supporters today in an action denounced as ‘insanity” by Dr James Philipps, who is both Chief of Disaster Medicine at George Washington University, and an attending physician at Walter Reed.

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-pays-surprise-visit-to-supporters-outside-hospital-12090431

He wrote on Twitter:

That presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID-19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play.

Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential 'drive-by' just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.

Another social media commentator described the POTUS as behaving “like a toddler with mumps insisting on being taken for a joyride”.

The president’s medical team have also issued an update today suggesting the president might be released from hospital as early as Monday.

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-coronavirus-us-president-could-be-discharged-from-hospital-as-early-as-monday-his-doctors-say-12090049


Footnote
Speaking from the personal experience of having once been hospitalised with bilateral pneumonia - and with very similar symptoms too, (fever of 102 F and a blood oxygen saturation of 91% and falling) - I would note that while I was indeed admitted to hospital on a Thursday, and discharged on the following Tuesday, I was actually signed off work for another 2 months, and put under the supervision of a visiting respiratory care nurse for the next six weeks. I was on industrial strength dosages of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory steroids for the first couple of weeks, and felt just about strong enough to sit up in a chair in front of a computer.

Many people do not realise that pneumonia itself is a ‘decimating’ illness. Even with modern treatments it routinely kills 1 in 10 people of all ages who contract it.

[toucana]

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is the latest member of president Trump's inner circle who apparently now 'gets' COVID-19, and is entering quarantine as a result.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/05/politics/kayleigh-mcenany-coronavirus-white-house/index.html

McEnany is the latest White House staffer to test positive for the virus, adding to questions about how widespread the West Wing outbreak will become. She continued to publicly shirk mask usage in the days since President Donald Trump and other staffers and outside advisers tested positive for the virus.

McEnany last briefed reporters in the briefing room on Thursday morning, hours before news of the President's diagnosis. On Friday, she appeared on Fox News and removed her mask to speak with reporters on the White House driveway. She spoke with reporters again on Sunday night, and did not wear a mask.

ETA - Two of McEnany's deputies, Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt, have also tested positive for coronavirus, two sources told CNN Monday afternoon. White House press staff are working remotely, an official said, but some essential workers are still at the White House.

[charon]

So Covid is nothing says Trump, just a lot of fuss about nothing...

This damaged man is more dangerous than even I thought he was. Time America had a coup, I think.

[Serpent]

That drive-by stunt, coupled with the remarks, seems to have backfired.
Not many people who caught it - in spite of precautions, because they had essential work to do, not because they've been grandstanding - had such an easy time.
Of course, it can still come back to bite him....

[toucana]

https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-could-become-ill-with-second-wave-of-coronavirus-within-days-lung-doctor-warns-12091651

Donald Trump could become seriously ill with a "second wave" of COVID-19 within days, a leading lung specialist has warned.

Professor Stephen Holgate, a respiratory specialist at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, told Sky News the decision to allow the US president to leave the Walter Reed military hospital was "not textbook".

"The disease can get worse very quickly," he said.
"He is still in the first wave. The second is yet to come, when the immune system goes into overdrive. It will probably hit him in two to three days' time."

Some patients with the disease can appear to improve, but then relapse as the immune system swamps the lungs with signalling chemicals - resulting in inflammation.

That can lead to blood clotting and damage to the air sacks that transfer oxygen into the blood.

Mr Trump - who is still infectious - appeared to be breathless upon his return to the White House after a three-day hospital stay.

Commentators have pointed out that prominent Republican Herman Cain who was most likely infected with COVID-19 after ostentatiously refusing to wear a mask at a Trump rally in Tulsa Oklahoma on 20 June also appeared to be recovering, before abruptly relapsing and dying on 30 July, some 29 days after first receiving a positive diagnosis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain

Herman Cain, like Donald Trump, was 74 years old.

[TheVat]

COVID isn’t a big deal. If you get it, follow these steps:

1. See doctors in your in-home medical center
2. If needed, board the helicopter out back
3. Fly to the best hospital in the country
4. Take the best therapeutics $750 in federal taxes can buy

(clipped from twitter yesterday)

[TheVat]

Trump's little show on the Truman balcony made me think of "Evita" for some reason.

[toucana]

Stephen Miller has now tested positive for COVID-19 according to breaking news on CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/stephen-miller-tests-positive-coronavirus/index.html

That means that virtually the whole top echelon team of advisers who prepped president Trump for last week's first presidential debate in Ohio have now tested positive and are on the sick list. Rudy Giuliani who was one of the few that hadn't publicly tested positive, was last seen coughing and hacking up phlegm live on Fox & Friends a day or so ago, and not looking at his best.

It is worth noting that Stephen Miller's wife Katie is the communications director for vice-president Mike Pence, and while she reputedly self-isolated after testing positive some weeks ago, it's anyone's guess whether she is contagious or not.

WH sources say that president Trump is still insisting that he plans to take part in the second presidential debate scheduled for 15 October (week on Thursday) at the Adrienne Arsht Arts Center For The Performing Arts in Miami Florida.

[charon]

This is in the White House. It shouldn't be.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/08/poli ... index.html

[edy420]

Does this mean Trumps immune now?

... at 74, I would have thought hed die for sure. Turns out hes now fully immune in just 3 days.
Soon his whole administration will be immune, smart.

No more masks, no more lockdown, no more fear of catching it. Never have to hide in the basement again. Now he can communicate with world leaders face to face. Biden on the other hand. Should hide until the vaccine comes out.

[Serpent]

There is no evidence that he's immune.
No -- his claiming, no matter how many times or how loudly or to whom - doesn't count.
We don't even know whether he's recovered.
There is still a glimmer of hope.

[TheVat]

I hope for his good health. And I hope that, when his presidential (legal) immunity ends on January 21, 2021, that he will be competent to stand trial as indictments for fraud and corruption are handed down.

[charon]

I hope for his good health. And I hope that, when his presidential (legal) immunity ends on January 21, 2021, that he will be competent to stand trial as indictments for fraud and corruption are handed down.

And lose the election without making excuses or trying to delay it (if he's well by then). But, of course, if he does lose it fair and square, we won't hear the end of excuses.

Will they lock up an ex-president?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... president/

[Dave_Oblad]

After Trump loses this election.. he will have a few weeks to raise some hell. But before they can drag him from the white house.. he will have left the White House on some excuse and disappear. Probably to join Epstein on some remote island and retire.

People as rich as Epstein don't die in prison and don't kill themselves. They have insurance in sealed documents that get released on their demise containing incriminating evidence against powerful people that would have them executed rather than risk them flipping or making a deal with prosecutors.

I'd say there is about 95% chance he is still alive and retired out of site, probably on some island for such purpose. Trump will join him soon as he loses the election. It's also possible Trump may just defect to Russia if he wants to keep his business going.

Not sure what he will do with his family.. probably take Ivanka with him and leave the rest to fend for themselves. In any event, after he loses, he needs to be incarcerated for being a flight risk. He will not stand in front of prosecutors and be forced to tell the Truth. Just like he will not do a debate with a moderator with a mic-mute button. He can't debate... He can only distract and voice lies. Would love to have a real time fact checker that weighs in after each contestants turn to speak, to limit the lies. First time the moderator cuts him off after his time limit expires, he will storm out. His ego won't be able to handle being censored by a mere mortal.

Added to this, his desire to get his base to raise hell, will be his most likely ploy to avoid the election by declaring Marshal Law just before election day.

In any event, if it takes the lives of another million citizens to keep him out of jail, I'm sure he will happily pay the price.

Just my 2 cents today.. be safe.
Dave :^)

[Serpent]

They will certainly not do what I would: put him in a cage with a silver blanket and a toilet -
any more than what I would have done when he became ill: drive him to Doctors' Community Hospital in a regular ambulance, possibly before the stock market closed ...

... but then, I'm a radical, a monster: I believe in the same liberty and justice for all.

[TheVat]

https://youtu.be/5C76XMCJCVs

A slight variation on a Paul McCartney song, "Maybe I'm Immune. "

[toucana]

This reads like an excerpt from The Onion, but it’s actually from The New York Times Saturday edition.

In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/us/politics/trump-white-house-coronavirus.html

In the words of one commentator, president Trump who is on steroids appears to be “higher than a giraffe’s ass”.

[Serpent]

Oh, I soooo wish they hadn't talked him out of the Superman teeshirt!

[charon]

I know comparisons are odious but I can't help noticing something. In the UK, the papers and media are full of the virus, facts and figures, decisions to be made. That predominates.

Looking the US media, it's all about Trump. The man's just a bloody nuisance of the highest order.

[Serpent]

That's his super-power. Self-promotion, and when that fails, attracting attention by any means, is his only talent. The MSM could have disappeared him at any time since 1980, simply by refusing him column-inches and airtime.