Ukraine open to neutrality as Putin presses on In a speech censored on Russian media, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was willing to consider neutrality in order to end the war "without delay," but would not sacrifice his country's territorial integrity.
Undercover FBI agent to testify in trial of Gov. Whitmer bonkers kidnap plot The agent, known as "Red," reportedly joined key members of an extremist group on a 2020 trip to Elk Rapids to take a look at Whitmer’s vacation home and a nearby bridge that could be blown up to distract police during her kidnapping, according to evidence.
FDA expected to authorize 2nd COVID boosters for people 50 and up Evidence suggests that protection from three shots is fading and a fourth shot would help boost immunity back up, as an even more contagious version of the omicron variant continues to spread in the US.
MORE KINDLING FOR THE FIRE— We should have seen this coming.
The latest October surprise roiling our politics — the feds announcing a foiled plot by Michigan militiamen to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — is actually not that surprising. It was only a few months ago when some of their comrades, heavily armed and dressed in paramilitary gear, stormed the state capital in Lansing to protest the sweeping executive power wielded by Whitmer in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. They stood above the legislative chamber, assault weapons slung over their shoulders, menacing the lawmakers below. They marched outside, surrounded by signs and chants calling Whitmer a tyrant, a fascist, an authoritarian who was starving families and turning freedom-loving workers into oppressed subjects of the state. Are we really shocked that a few of them acted on their rhetoric?
We’ve seen a similar spark of protest in the past, especially in Michigan, which has a heavy militia presence in parts of the state. Some of the same actors took to the same capital in Lansing in 2010 to protest Democratic policies. But Tea Party arguments about stimulus spending and bank bailouts and health care policies feel like the good old days. America’s cultural and political tinder is drier than it was a decade ago, drier than it has been in decades, drier than it has been in some of our lifetimes.
We can no longer ignore how this moment of civic turmoil — extreme political polarization, social alienation, economic inequality, racial hostility, a public health crisis, businesses closed by government edict — has created the ideal conditions for domestic terrorism.
This is why it was so important for Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor, to ask President Donald Trump during last week’s Cleveland debate whether he would denounce violent right-wing groups.
This is why it was so stunning for Trump to not do so. Saying “sure” in response to Wallace, and then telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” does not qualify as a renunciation.
It’s obviously true that the attempted kidnapping of an American governor has implications far beyond electoral handicapping. But it’s also true that the election is 26 days away — and that Trump, who’s already lagging far behind Joe Biden, just inherited another massive political problem.
Had Trump taken the opportunity in Cleveland to forcefully and unequivocally condemn the recent wave of right-wing aggression, he might be insulated from much of the backlash that accompanied today’s Whitmer news. Voters might recall how just last week they heard the president deliver an unscripted smackdown of these troublemakers. They might dismiss this as a bizarre, isolated incident that reflects no broader concern.
But Trump did nothing to give himself that benefit of the doubt. And now, in the home stretch of an election he’s already losing, he will be confronted with questions that are far more difficult to answer than the one Wallace posed in Cleveland.
Welcome to POLITICO Nightly.Feels like the ’90s again: My hometown Atlanta Braves are headed to the NLCS for the first time in 19 years. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
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Working in bipartisan pairs, canvassers process mail-in ballots in a warehouse at the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections headquarters in Glen Burnie, Md. | Getty Images
FIRST IN NIGHTLY
WATCHMEN— With the lifting of a decades-old consent decree, the Republican National Committee is now free to engage in poll watching, write Alex Isenstadt and Natasha Korecki. To that end, the campaign has established what it says is a 50,000-plus army of volunteer observers across an array of battleground states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where operations are already underway.
The Trump deployment is the culmination of months of detailed planning, aggressive volunteer recruitment, and reconnaissance trips to key states. Trump has been personally briefed on the program, which is overseen by nearly two-dozen full time staffers.
It underscores how — to the alarm of voting rights advocates and Democrats — Trump and his reelection effort have turned the idea of voter fraud and irregularities into a centerpiece of the campaign. The prospect of a prolonged vote-counting fight that will extend far beyond Nov. 3 appears very real.
PALACE INTRIGUE
GOOD FENCES— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell drew a stark contrast today between his handling of the coronavirus in the Senate and the approach taken by the White House, Marianne LeVine writes.
“I actually haven’t been to the White House since August the 6th because my impression was their approach to how to handle this was different than mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” the Kentucky Republican said during an event in northern Kentucky. McConnell, 78, added that he continues to speak frequently with Trump by phone.
While McConnell, a polio survivor, did not rebuke the president directly, he has repeatedly called for wearing masks, both in floor speeches and at events.
FROM THE HEALTH DESK
THE NEW HOTSPOTS — Since Oct. 1, coronavirus has spread rapidly through the Dakotas, Montana and Wisconsin. Increases in incidence of positive cases have been grown more slowly on the West Coast and in Northeastern and Southwestern states. Patterson Clark ’s map explores the areas where cases are quickly rising.
TALKING TO THE EXPERTS
VIRTUAL REALITY— It’s looking unlikely, butif Trump and Biden agree, the U.S. will have its first presidential debate conducted entirely over the internet one week from tonight. Nightly asked digital experts how they would design a virtual debate to take advantage of the unique properties of the medium. Below are their lightly edited responses.
“I hope they do it! This is how the world has worked since quarantine. I would change only a couple rules. First, candidates are muted when the other one is initially responding to questions. Second, candidates are muted if they exceed the allotted time for each answer. Third, candidates are allowed to multitask on their laptops in any way they want, but the public gets to see a log of their screens — meaning everything they look up on Google and every message they receive or send.” — Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED
“It’s actually no different than Kennedy/Nixon. It’s not a technology-based change; it’s a location-based change. If you tried to do anything more than side by side I think you would freak them both out. :)” — Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks
“The most exciting or at least welcome innovation might well be a microphone cut off. Obviously you can do this in in-person debates too, but it seems even more obvious to do so in a virtual debate. That said, I think you want to be careful about having the technology limit the candidates’ expression of who they are, what their temperament is like. There’s a good argument to be made that the mics in both spaces should be live the whole time — if one candidate is going to mutter obscene comments or the Lord’s prayer while the other is speaking, we should be able to see and hear it.
“Another thing to consider is how the candidates see each other. Jeremy Bailenson and Nick Yee at the Virtual Humans lab at Stanford found that even in virtual spaces, the relative size and position of people’s avatars have a significant effect on the way they interact with each other. For example, if you perceive the other to be small and lower down, you are likely to be more domineering. So a key question is how will the candidates see each other? The audience?
“That said, the virtual format would emphasize words, not physical presence, a disadvantage for Trump, whose debate style relies heavily on his imposing size and threatening demeanor. There is no way to pull a stunt like hovering behind Hillary in a virtual debate. Ideally, the debate commission would outfit both candidates with identical set ups.
“As for the audience, if it is a dispersed virtual group, they could be chosen from all over the country. It could include potentially everyone who wanted to be a part of it. Participation would be in the form of voting among mostly pre-written questions, with the opportunity for people in the audience to propose new questions, vote on them, and have a human moderator check them for appropriateness and balance with the rest of the evening (you don’t want it to be taken over by organized, aggressive partisans).
“Adding more audience participation is, as with a traditional town hall, a way of getting to questions that the voters really care about, and giving people the sense that they are being listened to. There are certainly interesting things to be done with real-time feedback, etc., but they require a lot more setup and securing from organized groups of activists set on reshaping the conversation around their specific interests, or on irritating one candidate. It has been frustrating watching the live moderators not press the candidates to answer the question that is being asked; it’s tempting to think you can solve this with say, live feedback buttons. But it is not clear if that would be effective, and in this time of very partisan politics, it is hard to see a way to ensure the audience acts to make the debate better rather than just support their chosen candidate/harm the opponent.” — Judith Donath, author of “The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online”
COVID-2020
SWING LOW— Instead of a presidential debate, the country might get a different kind of split screen next week: Trump speaking to supporters at a campaign rally and Biden speaking to an audience during an ABC News town hall. Neither forum seems geared toward swaying undecided voters. But that probably doesn’t matter much, campaigns reporter Zach Montellaro told the Nightly today. This year, said Zach, the undecided voter is as elusive — and less important — than ever.
Zach points to a Fox News poll showing that just 3 percent of voters are undecided this year. (He adds the caveat that this is just one poll.) In a close race, those voters might swing the race. But in this year’s contest, Biden has maintained consistent wide leads over Trump.
In October 2020, who are the undecideds, anyway? Zach goes down the list: Older voters, locked in. Younger voters, locked in. Whites, locked in. Black and Hispanic voters, locked in. Voters are ready to go to the polls. Turnout has been high throughout the primaries, even during the pandemic.
A small subset of self-described moderate voters remain undecided — 9 percent, in the Fox News poll — but even the vast majority of them have landed on a candidate, splitting 56 percent for Biden and 32 percent for the president.
SENIOR MOMENT — If there’s one group of voters Trump should, in theory, be able to count on, it’s senior citizens. And he’s trying: “To my favorite people in the world: The seniors!” Trump said in a video message he tweeted today.
In 2016, exit polls showed that 52 percent of voters ages 65 and older supported Trump, writes Zack Stanton. This year, polling suggests they’ve lurched heavily against him. A CNN poll this week showed Trump winning over just 39 percent of the same age group, compared to 60 percent who support Biden — the latest in a series of polls showing seniors breaking in favor of Biden.
What happened? Part of the reason is the coronavirus pandemic, a disruption that has left seniors uniquely vulnerable and isolated and without any clear plan to bring them back safely into society.
REWINDING ON THE FLY — Wednesday’s debate between Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence looked and sounded pretty different from what went down between Trump and Biden last week, but the exchanges were still tense. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, national political reporter Laura Barrón-López breaks down the biggest takeaways from the vice presidential showdown.
Nightly asks you:What book, movie or TV show best captures your 2020 experience? Use our form and send us your answer, and we’ll feature select responses in our Friday edition.
The amount Biden’s campaign raised Wednesday around the vice presidential debate, marking another watershed cash dayfor the already flush Democratic presidential ticket. (h/t national political reporter Elena Schneider)
PARTING WORDS
‘CERTAINLY HOPEFUL’— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is paying close attention to the U.S. campaign and is prepared for an uncertain outcome after the Nov. 3 vote. “As we watch the American election unfold, we are of course going to be prepared for various eventualities,” he said today during a media briefing when asked about instability that could result from tight results. “We are certainly hopeful that all will proceed smoothly.”
Canada is the United States’ biggest trading partner. The countries’ border has been closed to most travelers since March 21, with only limited personal travel allowed along with commercial traffic. Politicians on both sides of the border have pushed for it to reopen, but Canadian leaders want it to remain closed until the U.S. gets Covid-19 under control. While there is some pressure on the Canadian government to ease open the border, public opinion is decidedly behind the restrictions.
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We don’t have Presidential Debates in the United States any more and haven’t for years. We have TV quiz shows of a sort that are demeaning to any serious candidate, who is forced to put up with the more or less uninformed preening of news performers with no persuasive credentials for questioning much of anyone. Thoughtful discussions, according to the reigning conventional wisdom, make for “bad television,” meaning lower ratings, meaning less income, so the TV industry that exists only because it uses public airwaves avoids substantive, reliable discussion at the expense of the public good. This sham political theatre is all the result of the 1987 takeover of the debate franchise by the country’s two major parties under the guise of the Potemkin leadership of the Commission on Presidential Debates. But that’s a long, sordid story for another day. It’s enough for now to see how calamitously the process has devolved.
The TV show starring Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Chris Wallace was an out-of-control mud fight from the start and never got better. We had orange-faced Trump blustering and acting “strong.” We had pale-faced Biden speaking meekly and trying to act “reasonable.” And we had Wallace, apparently surprised by the play, caught in an untenable position of being expected to control the top two contenders for “leader of the free world.” Realistically, it’s a wonder anything coherent at all crept out of that 90-minute fiasco, not that much did. Do we have any clearer understanding of the candidates’ true intentions with regard to health care, race relations, police violence, poverty, or climate change, among other major issues? I don’t think so.
The intellectual barrenness of the event can also be measured by what was omitted, such as our participation in a genocidal war or our criminal treatment of immigrants.
Since March 2015, the US has supported Saudi Arabia and its allies in their unmitigated bombing of Yemen, killing civilians with disregard for the laws of war and creating the world’s most devastating humanitarian crisis. Worthy of mention in a US Presidential TV show? No.
For most of the past decade, the US government has visited cruelties and horrors upon immigrants along our southern border – men, women, and especially children fleeing frighteningly violent conditions in their home countries that the US was instrumental in creating in the first place. We’ve known for years that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is particularly cruel to children, even denying girls sanitary products for their menstrual periods. Now we’re learning that ICE has been carrying out US policy of forcibly sterilizing immigrant women against their will. Forced sterilization is what the Nazis did. Forced sterilization is what the US did in the early 20th century. Forced sterilization is a crime against humanity. Isn’t it worth a mention in a US Presidential TV show? No.
For all that Chris Wallace floundered and failed to raise important issues, it’s really not up to the moderator to make the candidates perform. Trump and Biden both claim to be worthy of being President, so it’s up to them to demonstrate their worth. Trump performed predictably, consistent with past performance going back years. Biden and his handlers could and should have known Trump’s capabilities and prepared to meet them effectively. Did Biden demonstrate the kind of strength we want in a President facing an obnoxious foreign leader? Not so much.
Some say the September 29 performance was “unlike anything we have seen before.” That’s nonsense. If you haven’t seen it before, then you haven’t been looking. When Trump was allowed to prowl the stage behind Hillary Clinton and no one even made an effort to challenge him, we knew he was capable of doing whatever he felt like. He might as well have grabbed her pussy – the theatrical effect was the same. Maybe then she would have reacted.
American debates have not always been like carnival sideshows. The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 offer a stark contrast to the clownery of our time. Abraham Lincoln was challenging Stephen Douglas for his seat in the US Senate. They agreed to hold seven joint debates in different Illinois counties. The format was simple: one candidate would speak for 60 minutes, the other would speak for 90 minutes, then the first would close for 30 minutes. They alternated going first at different locations. There was no moderator. The candidates performed unmediated. These debates were immensely popular and received national coverage. Douglas won re-election, but the debates helped Lincoln win the Presidency two years later. The main subject of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was slavery, the most pressing issue facing the nation.
It is all but impossible to imagine such a series of debates today, on race relations or any other crucial issue. What politician can we imagine speaking coherently for an hour or ninety minutes? There are a few. But what audience can we imagine sitting attentively for three hours? That is a sad measure of American culture today, where too much of the public is distracted by shiny irrelevancies while the party in power loots the government and rescinds the laws that protect us.
Serious as the coronavirus pandemic is, it’s also been the source of shiny irrelevancies of all kinds. Currently, there are those who claim that Trump is not sick and his Covid-19 hospitalization is an elaborate hoax. On the other side, the candidate who challenged Nancy Pelosi for her House seat and came out with 2% of the vote has now claimed that Democrats gave Trump the virus. DeAnna Lorraine, a QAnon-promoting Infowars personality, tweeted on October 2:
I’m just going to say what we’re all thinking. Trump was fine until the debate, where they set up microphones & podiums for him. Incubation period is usually 2-3 days. He tests positive a couple of days after the debate. I put nothing past the left. NOTHING….
Does anyone else find it odd that no prominent Democrats have had the virus but the list of Republicans goes on and on?
That’s a thought to feed paranoia, but there may be another explanation. Lorraine herself elsewhere offered a possible reason for Republican vulnerability:
Biblically, God does not want us wearing masks… If you have a mask on, it means you actually don’t trust God. You don’t have faith.
Given the level and variety of discourse in this country, even at its best, one may be tempted just to trust God. But it’s probably still a good idea to wear a mask around others, especially around all those unmasked believers. And it’s also probably a good idea to vote, based on your best guess of what’s real at the moment.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
FOCUS: Trump Was Hospitalized With Covid-19, 3 Days After Mocking Biden for Wearing a Mask Robert Mackey, The Intercept Mackey writes: "After six months of refusing to follow his own government's public health advice to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic, and just two days after mocking his opponent Joe Biden for routinely doing so, President Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, contracting the illness spread by respiratory droplets."
For months, the president recklessly disregarded mask-wearing, and aides and supporters followed his lead.
fter six months of refusing to follow his own government’s public health advice to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic, and just two days after mocking his opponent Joe Biden for routinely doing so, President Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, contracting the illness spread by respiratory droplets.
On Friday afternoon, the White House physician disclosed that Trump had a fever and a cough and had been given an experimental Covid-19 treatment, a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies that has not yet been approved by the F.D.A. A short time later, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said that the president would be “working from” Walter Reed Military Medical Center “for the next few days.”
Fox News, the president’s de facto campaign arm, had snapped into action by illustrating initial reports on the breaking news with one of the rare images of Trump wearing a mask — taken during a carefully staged photo-op at Walter Reed hospital in July.
While Trump’s aides had urged him to wear a mask in public that day to set an example for his followers, he was careful to undermine the guidance from health experts first, by suggesting that masks were appropriate only at times, like, “when you’re in a hospital.”
When he emerged from the White House on Friday for a more urgent trip to the hospital for treatment, the president was wearing the same cloth mask he had worn briefly that day in July, and waved dismissively as a debate prop on Tuesday. Given that he now has the virus, it seemed irresponsible of him not to wear an N95 mask instead, which would do more to protect those around him from getting the virus.
Before he left the White House for the hospital, the president recorded a video message thanking well-wishers, while not wearing a mask of any kind.
Before and after that July photo-op, the president has been a central figure in the politicization of mask-wearing — sowing resistance among his supporters by flouting the guidance himself and repeatedly making fun of others who follow it, particularly Biden, the Democratic nominee to replace him as president.
After Biden wore a mask to a Memorial Day service, Trump shared a childish tweet from the Fox News commentator Brit Hume suggesting that the former vice president looked silly.
At a rally in Pennsylvania last month, Trump treated Biden’s mask-wearing as a weakness to be ridiculed. “Did you ever see a man who likes a mask as much as him?” the president asked in his insult-comic mode.
He went on to suggest that his rival covered his face not to protect others or himself from the pandemic viral illness but “because, you know what, it gives him a feeling of security. If I were a psychiatrist, I’d say: ‘This guy’s got some big issues.'”
During the presidential debate on Tuesday, Trump again insinuated that there was something odd about the former vice president wearing a mask, a measure recommended by his coronavirus task force in April.
“I don’t wear a mask like him,” Trump said, gesturing toward Biden. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from him and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Biden responded by noting that the director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Robert Redfield, just told Congress that nationwide mask-wearing could bring the pandemic under control in 6-12 weeks, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives. When Trump interrupted with the false claim that health experts have “also said the opposite,” about the effectiveness of masks, Biden replied dismissively, “No serious person’s said the opposite.”
Moments later, Trump also made fun of Biden for observing social distancing at small-scale campaign events during the pandemic, and denied that the crowded rallies he has held recently to make himself feel loved have threatened public health. “So far we have had no problem whatsoever,” the president claimed, relying on voters to have forgotten, or never heard, that his supporter Herman Cain tested positive for Covid-19 nine days after sitting unmasked at Trump’s indoor rally in Tulsa in June, and died weeks later.
Biden then pointed out that Trump had said recently that his rallies were safe, for him, because he maintained social distance from his supporters. “He’s not worried about the people out there, breathing on one another, cheek by jowl,” Biden said. “We’ve had no negative effect,” Trump interjected. “No negative effect?” Biden replied. “Come on.”
Trump’s wife, Melania, and one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, also tested positive for the viral disease on Thursday. Both women have, at times, worn masks in public, but have also regularly been seen unmasked, including this week.
The first lady, like other members of Trump’s family, wore a mask as she took her seat in the debate hall at the Cleveland Clinic on Tuesday, but later removed it.
Naomi Biden, one of the candidate’s granddaughters, tweeted about that disregard for the rules from the other side of the debate hall.
At the conclusion of the debate, when she crossed the stage in front of Biden to join her husband, Melania Trump was unmasked. By contrast, Jill Biden, the former vice president’s wife, wore a mask throughout the indoor event, and continued to do so as she stood with her husband on stage after it concluded.
Although masks were supposed to be required for everyone in the debate audience, Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who was in the hall reported on Twitter that the entire Trump entourage “came in with masks, took them off as soon as they sat down, refused to put them on when asked by Cleveland Clinic personnel.”
After news of Trump’s positive test was reported on Thursday, Ornstein observed that the debate had taken place with “Trump shouting only 8-10 feet from Biden for 90 mins. Oy.”
On Friday morning, the Bidens were both tested but showed no sign of infection. “I’m happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID,” the former vice president wrote on Twitter. “Thank you to everyone for your messages of concern. I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands.”
Chris Wallace, the debate moderator, confirmed on Fox News on Friday that Trump, his aides and his family had also flouted the rules by not wearing masks in their pre-debate run through on stage. “There seems to have been a disregard for the risks of the virus,” Wallace said.
The Fox News anchor also explained that while he was tested by the Cleveland Clinic in advance of the debate, the president and his aides were allowed to screen themselves for the virus. “There was an honor system,” Wallace said on testing for the virus, “when it came to the people that came into the hall from the two campaigns.”
Incredibly, after Hicks was diagnosed on Thursday, Trump still went to a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “Trump was in close contact with dozens of other people, including campaign supporters, at a roundtable event,” The Washington Post reports. “The president did not wear a mask Thursday, including at the events at his golf course and on the plane, officials said. He was tested after he returned to the White House.”
The president’s disdain for mask-wearing has been one of the few constants in his response to the pandemic that has now killed nearly 208,000 Americans. In early April, when Trump himself announced that his coronavirus task force recommended mask-wearing to slow the spread of the virus, he immediately made it clear that he had no intention of doing so. Asked why, Trump said that he was concerned about how he would look, and suggested that the pandemic would soon be over anyway. “This will pass, and hopefully it will pass very quickly,” he told reporters.
Trump’s apparent worry was that the public might be alarmed, or perhaps tipped off to the true scale of the crisis he was intentionally downplaying, by seeing him in a mask. His concern clearly influenced the behavior of his aides and senior administration officials. In April, Vice President Mike Pence refused to wear a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic, where it was mandatory.
Also in April, the White House reportedly stepped in to block plans by the United States Postal Service to deliver five face covering to every American household, 650 million masks in total.
A month later, when food industry executives in Iowa arrived for a roundtable discussion with Pence, a White House aide was spotted on camera asking them to remove the masks they were wearing before the vice president entered the room.
Earlier on Friday, Notre Dame revealed that the university’s president, Rev. John Jenkins, had also tested positive. Days earlier, Jenkins had apologized for not wearing a mask and shaking hands with several people at the White House ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett last weekend. Footage of the event appeared to show Jenkins shaking hands with Attorney General Bill Barr.
“When I arrived at the White House, a medical professional took me to an exam room to obtain a nasal swab for a rapid COVID-19 test,” Jenkins wrote in an email to Notre Dame’s faculty, staff and students on Monday. “I was then directed to a room with others, all fully masked, until we were notified that we had all tested negative and were told that it was safe to remove our masks. We were then escorted to the Rose Garden, where I was seated with others who also had just been tested and received negative results.”
Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, also tested positive for Covid-19, as did Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah who just met with Barrett on Tuesday, an encounter during which neither of them wore a mask.
Lee was also seen shaking hands and hugging people at the Rose Garden ceremony for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee last Saturday.
On Friday evening, Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican revealed that he too had tested positive for Covid-19. Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, met with Barrett on Wednesday — indoors, unmasked — and also attended the White House event for her last Saturday.
fter six months of refusing to follow his own government’s public health advice to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic, and just two days after mocking his opponent Joe Biden for routinely doing so, President Donald Trump 
