-President Trump and the First Lady
have tested positive for the coronavirus.
-This is major breaking news that really impacts
the continuity of the American government.
-It's an extraordinary development
because it puts the President's health at risk.
We're only about four weeks and some change away
from the election, of course, on November 3rd.
-The President announced it on Twitter
just before 1 am eastern.
They'll begin their quarantine
and recovery process immediately.
-And we're learning that other members of the White House
may have had gotten the infection as well.
Hope Hicks, a counselor to the president,
one of the most senior White House officials
and someone who spends an awful lot of time
in close proximity to the President.
-And the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
-And the Chief of Staff at the White House Mark Meadows
telling reporters on Friday that he fully anticipates there
to be additional positive results
from other members of the staff
or other people who came into close contact
with either Hicks or the President.
-He has mild symptoms as we look at that.
The doctor will continue to provide expertise.
-Trump started his week Tuesday in Ohio at a debate onstage
with Joe Biden, six feet apart,
but they weren't wearing masks and it was inside.
-We know that Hope Hicks travelled with the President
on Wednesday to Minnesota,
where the President held a campaign rally that evening.
During that trip, Hope Hicks, according to our reporting,
started to get symptoms, started to feel sick.
She was isolated aboard Air Force One Wednesday night
for the flight home to Washington.
On Thursday, she tested positive for the coronavirus
and went into an immediate isolation
and left the White House.
-The President is on
an incredibly fast campaign schedule.
He's doing quite a lot.
He has held multiple fundraisers this week.
-His fundraiser in New Jersey and his decision to travel there
came after knowing Hope Hicks had coronavirus symptoms.
-Nobody wore masks.
That was clearly a risky situation,
but he proceeded with it anyways.
It wasn't until late Thursday night
when the President was back at the White House
that he tested positive for he coronavirus.
-Politically speaking, this comes at a time
when the President has been trying
to put coronavirus behind him.
It's been dragging down his polls
since it shutdown the US in March.
-We have not seen him wearing a mask.
We have not seen him enforcing social distancing
at some of the gatherings that he's holding.
We haven't seen him even talking positively about things like,
you know, maintaining six feet of social distancing,
washing your hands, wearing a mask.
Instead, he's been ridiculing people
who are focusing on this virus and taking it seriously
and deciding to follow the public health guidelines.
-I don't have wear masks like him.
Every time you see him he's got a mask.
He could be speaking 200 feet away from you
and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen.
-Legally, if the president were to get sick enough,
where he couldn't serve
and this is happening in the middle of an election,
it's not clear what that would mean for the actual election.
Legal experts that I've been talking to say
that electors aren't really bound to vote
for an incapacitated or a deceased candidate.
The states don't really have regulations,
most of them, for how to deal with this.
And that could, the worst-case-scenario,
leave things pretty messy.
-This is a government right now where so many of the key
decisions are made by the President personally.
And so him being knocked out, him being in isolation,
really slows down the workings of the government.
-There's also an ongoing Supreme Court confirmation battle.
The President has already nominated who he wants,
and you know, sent that over
to the Republican controlled Senate to handle.
But it's something that the White House
wants to be intimately involved in.
And the White House and Republicans
are trying to get done in a matter of weeks,
possibly voting to confirm the President's
nominee before the election.
President Trump is squarely in the demographic of people
who, you know, have more difficulty with coronavirus.
He's 74, so he's in that older category
that tends to get harder and longer by the virus.
-He is at risk.
And in terms of his temperament,
this is a President who does not like to be isolated,
does not like to be behind closed doors.
The fact that he has to go into quarantine
is a challenge for him,
especially in the final days of his campaign.
-Of course, if the President were to either die
or resign somehow because of his health,
the Vice President would become the President,
that's the way our government works.
-Obviously, everyone has been wishing the President well.
No one wants there to be a transition of power that,
that results from death or severe illness,
but that is also something that could be on the table as well.
So, the scope and the magnitude of this
is just hard to describe.