October 02, 2020 07:58 AM UTC

President Trump Has COVID

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, have tested negative for COVID-19. Current Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, have also tested negative.

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UPDATE: Panic grows in Washington as more high-ranking Republicans test positive for COVID-19, including Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah–the latter being particularly problematic, because:

As of this writing, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has tested negative, as has Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden–but they’ll need more testing in order to be sure. With only a month left to go before the 2020 elections, the impact of these developments are difficult to objectively assess today–but they’re going to be large.

Buckle up, October of 2020 is going to be a wild ride.

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It’s the news dominating the morning, as CNN reports:

A country already unnerved by a devastating health catastrophe and a turbulent political season faced fresh upheaval Friday as Americans awoke to news President Donald Trump had contracted coronavirus.

The President made the announcement on Twitter at nearly 1 a.m. ET on Friday and the development — after months of debilitating losses, set against a badly mismanaged federal response overseen by a commander-in-chief who repeatedly downplayed the crisis — threw fresh turmoil into the country’s leadership at a moment of deep national strain…

A senior administration official said Friday that Trump wasn’t showing major symptoms and planned to work from the White House residence. A White House official described Trump’s condition as having “mild symptoms” of the coronavirus and said aides were looking at ways for Trump to speak to the nation on Friday, though no final decision had been made by mid-morning.

Obviously there’s a lot we could say here, but some moments in history are better defined by what is not said. Or what doesn’t need to be said. You may disagree and decide to say it, and that’s your prerogative, but we’re taking the high road–for today. And with that in mind, we wish the President, the First Lady, and anyone else affected by this situation a speedy recovery.