WASHINGTON — A top aide to President Donald Trump defended the president’s decision to travel to a campaign fundraiser last week after learning that another top aide had tested positive for Covid-19 — a trip that came hours before Trump learned that he had contracted the virus
Jason Miller, the Trump campaign’s senior adviser, told “Meet the Press” that Trump still traveled to the fundraiser at his New Jersey golf club because he and those around him are regularly tested for coronavirus, and at that point, the president hadn’t tested positive.
But by the time Trump attended the fundraiser, one close aide had tested positive for Covid-19 — Hope Hicks, who traveled with the president on Air Force One Wednesday evening. It was during that trip that Hicks quarantined herself on the plane after feeling unwell.
“Anybody around the president is tested, not only tested for Covid with the rapid test but they also have their temperature checked. At any of these events folks are kept back from him by six feet, that’s the update from the fundraiser they had. So people aren’t getting that close to the president,” Miller said.
“But again, the president did not have a positive test yet,” Miller said. “As soon as he did have a positive test, they of course went to a different level of protocol.”
Miller repeatedly demurred when asked why the White House didn’t follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which say that “people who have been in close contact with someone who has Covid-19″ should quarantine for two weeks from their last contact with an infected person.
That CDC guidance also says that people should still quarantine after a close contact “even if you test negative for Covid-19 or feel healthy” because “symptoms may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure.”
“I’ll let both White House operations and the White House medical unit speak to the exact particulars,” Miller said when again pressed on that CDC guidance, pointing to the protocol that requires the president and those coming into contact with him to be tested for the virus.
“I’m never within six feet of the president even when I’m around him, so they take a lot of seriousness into these precautionary measures.”
But he pointed out that even those protocols aimed at protecting the president could not spare him from contracting the virus.
“There’s a lot about this virus we don’t know. President Trump is, arguably, the single-most protected person on the entire planet and yet he got Covid,” Miller said.
As the state of New Jersey works with the White House and the Trump campaign apparatus to contact trace those who came into contact with the president and his staff during the fundraiser, a person with knowledge of that effort told NBC News that there’s frustration at the state level as to the time it’s taken Trump’s orbit to turn over information.
Trump has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center since Friday, in what aides have described as a precautionary move.
On Saturday, the president’s doctors preached optimism in statements to reporters and Trump tweeted a video saying that while “I came here, wasn’t feeling so well. I feel much better now.” Since doctors began caring for the president, he’s received the experimental antiviral therapy Remdesivir as well as an antibody therapy called Regeneron.
But those close to the White House have, at times, described a more serious situation. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News on Saturday night that Trump had a fever on Friday and his “blood oxygen level dropped rapidly.”
“He’s a fighter, as we all know,” Meadows said. “He’s not out of the woods. The next 48 hours or so, with the history of this virus, we know can be tough. But he made unbelievable improvements from yesterday morning when I know a number of us … were very concerned.”
Miller said he spoke with Trump for 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon and that he is in “very good spirits” and wanted to remind Americans to “be careful” and take steps to mitigate the spread of the virus like wearing masks and washing hands.
“The president said a couple of things: Number one, he is going to defeat this virus, that as a nation, we are going to defeat this virus, and our campaign is going to defeat this virus. Once he gets out of the hospital, he’s ready to get back to the campaign trail,” Miller said.