“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,” Trump tweeted early Friday morning. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
Two days after ridiculing Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, of wearing masks always, President Trump and his wife, Melania, have tested positive of the Covid-19.
“I don’t wear masks like him,” Trump had said of Biden during the stormy first 2020 presidential campaign debate on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S September 29, 2020.
“Every time you see him, he’s got a mask,” Trump had continued. “He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
According to USA TODAY, this came “few hours after Trump confirmed one of his longest-serving aides with whom he had recently traveled also received a positive test result. The revelation had implications for the president’s health, the administration’s response to the pandemic and also the Nov. 3 election, during which Trump has leaned on states to reopen and has claimed that the nation is “turning the corner” on the virus.
Trump himself announced his new Covid-19 status on his Twitter handle:
“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
The president has often, according to USA TODAY, “claimed the U.S. has the pandemic “under control, but his own positive test result – assuming it is accurate – is certain to raise questions about the reopening of schools and businesses when the virus could not be contained within the White House, arguably the most secure facility in the world.
By this, Trump has joined world leaders who tested positive for COIVD-19: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (in March) and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (in July), both of whom had recovered.
“The president’s positive test is certain to become wrapped up in his own efforts to downplay the seriousness of the disease for months while holding rallies, fundraisers and other campaign events across the country, including in virus hot spots. The president repeatedly asserted the U.S. outperformed other nations in confronting the disease, despite having the highest number of cases and deaths in the world,” says USA TODAY.
