Prime
Was the President the Superspreader? 
A variety of circumstantial evidence now raises the real possibility that the President was himself the super-spreader at the center of the White House COVID cluster. To know with any confidence we will need a thoroughgoing contact tracing investigation. It’s quite possible the vector is a little-known White House aide who mingled through the crowd last Saturday in the Rose Garden. For the moment we only have information about the high profile infectees.
But two bits of circumstantial evidence stand out. Read More
I think TPM Reader DC has this right. The real question isn’t when Trump tested positive. It’s the last time he had a negative test result. That seems likely to be the issue with the muddled timeline …
The most important question for timeline is when the last negative test was, and exactly when and what testing platform were positive results obtained.
I am supposing he tested negative Wednesday AM using the daily Abbott rapid test. 50% false negative rate.
In retrospect reports that he was dragging Wednesday Night might explain why Conley indicated he had been sick for 72 hours.
Like a Novel and Not a Good One
It’s like a novel and not a terribly good one. It now seems quite probable, if not certain, that the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18th triggered a chain of events that led directly to the President’s diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization for COVID-19. As you may have heard, a growing body of circumstantial evidences points strongly to the conclusion that the announcement event for Amy Coney Barrett as the President’s nominee to replace Ginsburg was the spreader event that has led to the current outbreak at the White House and in the upper echelons of the GOP.
To date, Trump, Melania Trump, Sens. Lee and Tillis, the President of Notre Dame University, Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager Bill Stepien, Hope Hicks have all tested positive in the last 48 hours. RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and Sen. Ron Johnson have also tested positive, though their connection to the Rose Garden event is less direct or at least unclear.
Where Things Stand: Come For The Trump COVID News, Stay For The Congressional Probe
This is one of a handful of times in TPM’s history that our reporting sparked a congressional probe.
It Looks Like a Cover Up
The timeline of events leading up to the disclosure of President Trump’s diagnosis point overwhelmingly to some mix of a coverup and gross negligence and likely both.
Let’s review some key facts, as far as we presently know them.
Processing the News and the Spread
Under any circumstances, the President contracting a potentially fatal disease – and one that moves quickly – constitutes a grave national security crisis. We cannot and should not shy away from the fact that the President’s affliction – and likely those of others around him – is a direct result of his own reckless behavior. Overnight reports suggest his top aides seldom wear masks in his presence “in deference to the president’s disdain for them.” At Tuesday night’s debate his family and entourage pointedly refused to wear masks, even refusing a Cleveland Clinic doctor’s appeals to do so, which the debate rules mandated. Given these facts it is all but certain that a significant number of other top officials at the White House also have COVID.
Feds Delivering The Goods For Trump Campaign Just In Time For Election Day
Where Things Stand: Check Out Melania’s Latest Side Project
If you watched the debate on Tuesday or have paid attention to the Trump family’s public appearances in the last 48 hours, you don’t need me to point out the irony here.
If Winning is Your Ideology, Being a Loser is Fatal
A friend asked me to read and give my reaction to this debate reaction piece by Tim Alberta in Politico. Of late I haven’t been on the same page on many things Alberta has written. There are various assumptions and claims in this one I don’t agree with. But on the big point I think Alberta really nails a key element of what happened Tuesday night. I mentioned yesterday that there’s a certain roguish fun and entertainment Trump can bring which we shortchange ourselves not to understand and credit no matter how much we might loathe him or despise what he represents.
This was one of Trump’s campaign superpowers in 2016. Whatever else you could say it was really, really clear that Trump was enjoying himself. And why wouldn’t he be? He was breaking the rules and getting away with it. On his maiden political campaign he was felling the men who were supposed to be the futures of the Republican Party one after another. He was being himself and it was working. He would provoke, crack a joke, offend and while his competitors were prepping tut-tutting press releases he was on Fox or on Twitter moving on to his next stunt.