1/ Trump and his wife Melania tested positive for the coronavirus after months of playing down the pandemic that has killed more than 205,000 Americans and sickened millions more. “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,” Trump tweeted. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!“ Trump, 74, was diagnosed hours after one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, tested positive. Hicks traveled with Trump on Air Force One and Marine One this week to the presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday and to a campaign rally in Minnesota on Wednesday, and tested positive Thursday morning. After the White House learned of Hicks’ symptoms, Trump flew to New Jersey for a fundraiser, delivered a speech, and was in close contact with dozens of other people, including campaign supporters at a roundtable event. At a political dinner Thursday night, Trump told guests that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.” While he did not appear ill, he did not speak to reporters as he returned to the White House. The president’s physician, meanwhile, said Trump was “well” without saying whether he was experiencing symptoms. Hicks is showing symptoms. Two days ago at the presidential debate, Trump mocked Biden for wearing a mask every time he appears in public. “I put a mask on when I think I need it,” Trump said. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from it. And he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” There are 32 days before the election on Nov. 3. (Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg / NBC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Politico / ABC News / NPR / CNBC /
- Dow futures plunged in early morning trading. (CNBC / Bloomberg / NBC News)
- [READ] The letter from White House physician Dr. Sean Conley about Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. (NBC News)
2/ Melania Trump mocked migrant children separated at the border, saying “give me a fucking break.” In a tape secretly recorded in 2018 by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to the first lady, Melania complained about being criticized for Trump’s policy of separating families who illegally crossed the southern border while at the same time needing to perform traditional first lady duties, such as preparing for Christmas. “They say I’m complicit. I’m the same like him, I support him. I don’t say enough I don’t do enough where I am,” she said. “OK, and then I do it and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a fucking break.” Earlier in the conversation, the first lady complained about Christmas decorations at the White House, saying “I’m working […] my ass off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” (CNN / New York Times)
3/ Trump condemned “all White supremacists” two days after refusing to do so at the presidential debate. “I condemn the KKK, I condemn all White supremacists, I condemn the Proud Boys. I don’t know much about the Proud Boys, almost nothing, but I condemn that,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany wouldn’t give a declarative statement denouncing White supremacists. (Bloomberg / CNN)
Notables.
- The House approved a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief measure. (Politico)
- Fox News paid Trump, Jr.,’s girlfriend upward of $4 million to avoid going to trial after an employee wrote a 42-page complaint accusing Kimberly Guilfoyle of repeated sexual harassment. In November, 2018, a young woman who had been one of Guilfoyle’s assistants at Fox News sent company executives a confidential, draft complaint demanding monetary relief. In July 2018, Fox News" announced it “parted ways with Kimberly Guilfoyle” following a multimillion-dollar out-of-court settlement. (New Yorker / CNN)
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