An upcoming book will reveal details about Trump’s coronavirus test results. This was just days before his first presidential debate against Joe Biden.
Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to President Donald Trump’s final year in office, wrote the book. In response to reporting on the excerpt from Meadows’s book, Trump described the anecdote as “fake news” — a term he frequently uses to describe negative reporting on him, despite the fact that such reporting often turns out to be true.
Meadows’s book, titled The Chief’s Chief, offers an inside look at the Trump White House from the former chief of staff’s perspective. Meadows recounts the story of how Trump discovered he was gay in the section that covers the days leading up to the first debate. tested positive for COVID-19While on his route to a Pennsylvania campaign rally on September 26,
The positive diagnosis shocked White House staff, Meadows wrote — even though the White House had just hosted a ceremony for then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, an occasion that was later described as a “super-spreader” eventDue to the high number of people who tested positive after attending.
Sean Conley, Trump’s White House doctor, called while the former president was en route to the rally. “Stop the president from leaving. He just tested positive for Covid,” Conley said.
Trump’s former chief of staff said that he responded to the news by saying expletives that rhymed with, “Oh spit, you’ve gotta be trucking lidding me.” (Meadows is a devout Christian and doesn’t swear.)
While still on his way to the rally, a second test using a different method was conducted with Trump’s sample. This test returned a negative result, which was confirmed by the White House. Trump interpreted as meaning that he had “full permission to press on as if nothing had happened,” Meadows wrote. However, Meadows “instructed everyone in [Trump’s] immediate circle to treat him as if he was positive” during the trip to the campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Meadows also noted that in the days between Trump’s negative/positive test results and the first presidential debate, Trump looked tired and somewhat ill. Trump admitted that he was suffering from a slight cold but went to the debate anyway.
Trump did not test the rules for that event because he arrived late and could not have a test done before the event started. Instead, debate officials took Trump at his word that he had recently tested negative for coronavirus.
A few days later, Trump tested positive again for COVID. He was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in order to receive treatment. The former president blamed Gold Star military familiesThey were responsible for his infection and claimed they spread it at an event that took part after his positive test in late September.
In response to reporting on Meadows’s book, Trump didn’t explicitly deny that he had initially tested positive for COVID-19, but did imply that it was a false portrayal of events.
“The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News,” Trump said in a statement. “In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate.”
