He joked about this with Mark Meadows his Chief of Staff on Air Force One after the debate….
Another case of the guy’s lies….
Trump tested positive 3 days before the debate…
Got another test that was negative….
But before the debate Trump, as President, was displaying symptoms and another staff memeber KNEW her boss HAD Covid….
Donald Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows joked about the then US president having Covid on Air Force One after the first debate with Joe Biden in 2020 – an event at which Trump was not tested but three days before which, Meadows later confessed, Trump had indeed tested positive.
On the flight, on 29 September 2020, Trump speculated about his health, saying he thought his voice had sounded “a little bit off” at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota. But he also said he did not want the media to “accuse me of something ridiculous, like having Covid”.
Meadows “laughed and promised him that we would handle it if it happened”.
“We” referred to Meadows and Cassidy Hutchinson, the chief of staff’s closest aide who has now written a memoir, Enough. The book, which describes Hutchinson’s journey from Trump loyalist to key witness in the January 6 inquiry, will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.
In December 2021, the Guardian obtained a copy of Meadows’s own memoir, The Chief’s Chief. In that book, Meadows revealed that Trump tested positive for Covid three days before debating Biden but disregarded the test after another came back negative and then, despite showing worsening symptoms, carried out public events including the debate and a reception for bereaved military families.
Trump denied the account, calling it “fake news”. Remarkably, Meadows agreed, saying of his own book: “Well, the president’s right, it’s fake news.”
Hutchinson, however, writes that Meadows all but admitted the positive test right after the flight. When she and Meadows were in a limo after the plane ride back to Washington from Minnesota, she writes, she asked if Trump had Covid.
He did not answer, but “his silence answered every question I had”, Hutchinson writes. “The virus had reached the highest echelons of power.”…
image….Alexander Drago/Reuters