Mark Meadows, White House Chief of Staff, Tests Positive For COVID-19
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has reportedly tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
At least four other White House officials have also been infected, including one of Meadows’ aides, Cassidy Hutchinson, and senior Trump campaign aide, Nick Trainer, according to Bloomberg, which was the first outlet to report the news.
Sources told CNN that Meadows, who has yet to issue a public statement regarding his diagnosis, began informing people that he had tested positive following Election Day.
Meadows, 61, was last spotted on Tuesday evening, when Trump gave a speech to supporters in the East Room of the White House. He also traveled with Trump on Sunday and Monday, joining the president on Air Force One, according to CNN.
His coronavirus diagnosis comes as the contentious election between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden has still not been called, with Biden holding onto a lead in four of the remaining states.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Mark Meadows
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In October, Meadows made comments about the Trump administration’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic that led to responses from Biden, as well as other top Democratic politicians.
“We're going to defeat the virus; we're not going to control it,” Meadows told reporters, as cases and deaths hit new surges across the U.S.
“We will try to contain it as best we can,” Meadows said, adding the White House is instead focusing on therapeutics and finding a vaccine.
At the time, Biden, 77, said Meadows' remark was “an acknowledgment of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t,” The New York Times reported.
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Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, also told reporters that Meadows’ statement signaled the Trump administration was “admitting defeat,” while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told NBC New York: “They surrendered without firing a shot.”
The new cases come about one month after an outbreak in the White House resulted in the president himself testing positive for the virus.
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In addition to Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and their teen son Barron, several other White House staffers tested positive, many of whom attended a Rose Garden ceremony for Trump's Supreme Court nominee. Several people who helped the president prepare for his first presidential debate, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also ended up testing positive.
More than 132,700 new coronavirus cases were reported across the country on Friday, breaking the record of daily cases for the third straight day. There were also more than 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths reported for the fourth straight day, numbers that have not been seen since August, according to a New York Times database.
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