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.
—–
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.
—–
President Donald Trump (R).
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.
It was bound to happen eventually. You can only flaunt expert advice for so long before Hubris/Karma/Schadenfreude exact their due.
I just hope Joe Biden and his team are safe and virus-free, given all the spittle Trump was aiming his way Wednesday night.
I'm glad their podiums were far apart.
Podia, but they weren't podia, they were lecterns.
Yes, Trump was up there like a spitting cobra flinging his venom.
It was just reported Biden tested negative today.
Reminds me of the scene in the Vietnam War movie The Deer Hunter where they are playing Russian Roulette. In this case, it is COVID Roulette and they have played it a long time. Sooner or later poor health practices catch up with you. It's kind of like eating Twinkies every day and assuming that there are no long term health consequences. Sooner or later you have to reckon with your reckless living.
I thought Twinkies had enough preservatives to guarantee a long life.
Forty-three years and counting!
Twinkies share that trait with the practically eternal “Happy Meal”. We kept one of those for about twelve years, back when I peddled a nutritional supplement I take. All it did was dessicate. It will not rot…like actual food does.
Tots and pears, bunkerboy. Hard to have sympathy for someone who is responsible for 100,000+ preventable deaths.
He's downplaying it.
Pence should go to the undisclosed location. And get his pardon pen ready.
Even a moron George W. Bush knew enough about continuity of government to put Dick Cheney in his secured, undisclosed location during the early days following 9/11.
Has anyone explained to Trump and Pence that Pelosi is next in line of succession?
Shhhhh . . .
Uh, no, I don't. I want Fat Donnie from Queens to have a Boris Johnson experience. Followed by a Herman Cain one.
Shouldn't Nutlid have been along already to assure us that this is all a big fat nothing burger with melted Swiss cheese and a side of fries?
Nutlid might already have the virus.
He's preoccupied trying to grasp what life is going to be like after January 20 when his household budger suffers a +/- 50% decrease in taxpayer largesse.
I do not wish him well in that event.
If Mike Lee has covid and misses the Barrett vote and murkowsky and collins vote no, it's still 50-49 for fascism forever, as Injustice Gorsuch once urged. We're getting very close. Anyone seen Blanche wear a mask?
BTW, ACB tested positive for virus last summer! Says she is negative now.
Yes, but they don't know how long the antibodies last. She may, or may not, be able to get re-infected.
They just released the list of all the GOP senators plus Manchin who have met with her this week. And, yes, the junior senator from the Centennial State was among them.
Anyone know how the Q-Anon Continuum is processing this news?
Probably not well, I would guess.
I'd summon up the Q Comms Master Decoder for you, but mom says all of the pizza boxes and Mountain Dew cans have to be picked up in the basement today without fail.
Very well, actually.
The "10 days" are coming.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/akzx3g/qanon-believers-think-trump-got-covid-on-purpose-because-of-course-they-do
It is turtles are the way down.
Has Q-bert been tested? Or did she put enough bleach in those sliders to immunize her?/p>
From “Q,” right wing hate monger and owner/operator of the now-defunct 8chan Jim Watkins, Trump does not have COVID-19. That’s a cover story. The round-up of Deep State satanic pedophiles is either about to begin or is already under way. Trump, the enemy of Deep State satanic pedophiles, has been spirited away to a safe but undisclosed location from which he can supervise the arrests free of potential retaliation from Deep State satanic pedophile forces.
Mike Pence is a heavily compromised Deep State operative and will therefore be among the arrested. When Trump returns to the public eye a couple of weeks hence, he will announce that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who is very much alive despite what all y’all sheeple may believe – is the new vice president.
Joe Biden, of course, is dead and has been ever since his execution months ago. The guy we think is Joe Biden is a clone. (Yes, QAnoners believe the Deep State satanic pedophiles not only have mastered human cloning but also can rapidly age a human clone as desired.)
Maybe someone can ask Yosemite Q*Bert if she hopes this is true.
Well now, in less than a day we've gone from positive test with no symptoms to mild symptoms to moderate symptoms to being choppered to Walter Reed (after the markets closed, of course) as a "precautionary measure."
Same thing I thought. It's not definitely serious, but could well become so in 1 – 2 days.
Oh, and now being given experimental drugs – it's serious.
This is starting to resemble the Soviet Union between 1982 and 1985 when a series of geriatric leaders were reportedly suffering from a "cold."
I’ve kinda suspected for awhile that Trump might be getting Brezhneved. The Soviets kept ol’ Leonid alive (though not always coherent) well beyond his expiration date through pharmacological intervention, and the available interventions have only gotten better over the decades.
Way before this COVID-19 stuff, his fairly consistent symptoms (forward-leaning posture, limb weakness, balance and gait problems, disordered speech, slurring and disorganized tongue movements) indicate some sort of serious pathology. Couple that with symptoms like uncontrollable sniffing, probable effects of whatever drugs they use to manage his mood and wakefulness throughout the day, and you’re talking one severely fucked up old man.
It is starting to sound like the Russian Flu, isn't it?
Question of the moment: Who in the GOP is marshaling his political resources right now to become the candidate if Trump is incapacitated on November 3?
Mike Pence? He doesn’t seem to have a legion of supporters.
Mitt Romney? I don’t think so.
Louis Gohmert? (I was imagining the worst possible Trump ally).
Seriously, there’s a good chance that Trump cannot be the GOO candidate.
If he's alive, they dare not replace him. Because whoever voted to do that would be pushed out of the party if Trump recovered.
If he dies, I think they have no choice but Pence. There's no obvious successor and Pence wins as the default. And my guess is no V.P. announced before the election because again, there's no obvious selection. (or maybe Ivanka).
Exactly. First rule of a dictatorship – no designated successor.
Agree that it would be Pence since (a) he would be the incumbent (or sorts), and (b) all hell would break loose if they opened the process up and everyone and his brother or sister got into the fight before the RNC.
Also I was reading that unlike the Democratic Party, where the national committee would select a replacement candidate (like they did with Sargant Shriver in 1972), the Republican Party rules call for a reconvening of the convention.
As for Vice President Ivanka Trump, it was actually considered once before.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/politics/ivanka-trump-vice-president-running-mate/index.html
Chinese proverb says, "May you live in interesting times."
Actually, people have been asking that question all evening: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-trump-election-ex-idUSKBN26N343
The worst possible Trump ally…..
There is not such thing as a short list for that. There is a complete gaggle of nut jobs waiting in the wings.
These are the mild symptoms Mark Meadows alluded to:
Obviously, even a normal administration would minimize any symptoms to the public. We can only wait. At a minimum, Trump will be lethargic & wheezy, and out of public activity for the last few weeks of the campaign.
If you know anyone who has had Covid, you know that there are a lot of lingering symptoms: Lungs, gastro-intestinal, heart, maybe brain.
Covid is a serious disease, the kind that triggers pre-existing condition clauses.
For the country's sake, I hope Trump gets better so that we can whup his ass on Nov 3, and bring down the long arm of the law over the next months and years.
What if one of the consequences is that he has trouble speaking and has to rest his larynx for a while? No venom spittle to spew for a week. No rallies. No debate. A guy can dream can't he?
@GG: unfortunately, Trump doesn't need his larynx to spew out his emotional diarrhea on Twitter.
Judge Barrett already had the nasty during the summer, but there is some debate as to whether one can be reinfected.