Don’t let this crime die news cycle death

Democrats missed the issue about Trump’s COVID testing

Democrats are missing the issue about Trump’s COVID testing. What the public hears is that Trump is not being forthcoming about when he had his last negative test prior to being diagnosed with COVID. For most voters, the accusation stops there. Just more stonewalling. What exactly Trump is trying to hide is not clear. And, to the extent that the significance of the stonewalling is being explained to voters, the suggestion is made that Trump’s reluctance to disclose his last negative test is borne of a desire to hide the fact that he skipped a test or two in the early stages of his infection. There are insinuations that there could be worse reasons for the refusal to disclose the last negative test, but they are not spelled out. It is assumed that the evidence is beyond our reach and/or there isn’t enough of it to make accusations that will stick or at least sting.

However, these worse reasons for stonewalling about tests are in fact the most probable and the evidence is in plain sight. The facts are most consistent with two very damning scenarios: either Trump had a general policy of not submitting to the tests that he required everyone around him to take, or he was tested as often as he has said but he had a positive test, presumably from a rapid-result antigen test in widespread use in the White House, at least a day and perhaps several days prior to the disclosure of his diagnosis. Such a positive test would likely have been before the September 29 debate. Yet, knowing he was positive, Trump went to the debate and continued to campaign and generally go about his business. Both of these scenarios would have been premised on a policy of withholding information about a likely or known Trump infection for as long as possible, and perhaps with the delusional intention of never disclosing it, if that somehow could be accomplished.

The known record of what happened on September 30, the day after the debate, and October 1, the day the story broke, supports the existence of such a delusional intention. On Wednesday, September 30, Trump, accompanied by staff, including Hope Hicks, went to a fundraiser in Minneapolis and an early evening rally in Duluth. Hicks’ COVID symptoms were first acknowledged on the plane from Minneapolis to Duluth, where Hicks flew in a “separate compartment.” Presumably from that point forward she was quarantined. She did not get out of the plane for Trump’s Duluth rally. When Trump stepped off to great fanfare (the rally was right in front of the plane) he presumably knew that Hicks was sick. Anyone reviewing the tape today of Trump as he deplaned in Duluth would detect a distinct lack of bounce in his step and a grim demeanor. Once he began to speak, one can detect a rasp in his voice and suggestions that he was having breathing issues. The speech only lasted forty-five minutes, compared to his typical one and a half to two hours. Once Trump got back on the plane, Hicks remained quarantined and there was reportedly discussion among the staff about it. Trump uncharacteristically slept. Much effort was eventually made to portray Trump’s “discovery” that he himself was positive as coming from the positive PCR test whose results were announced at about 1:00 a.m. on October 2, a test allegedly taken as a precaution because of Hick’s positive diagnosis. However, Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, in his first announcement from the hospital on Saturday, October 3, said that it had been 72 hours from the onset of Trump’s symptoms, which would have been Wednesday. The White House furiously walked this back, and Conley amended his statement to say that Saturday was just the “third day” since symptoms appeared, which was at best a semi-retraction. Later, when he wanted to clear Trump for activity, something that under the guidelines (for a mild case) could only happen ten days after the first appearance of symptoms, Conley said that it would be ten days from the appearance of Trump’s symptoms as on Saturday, October 10. Ten days before October 10 was Wednesday, September 30. This was never walked back or even remarked upon. Trump was symptomatic no later than Wednesday, September 30. The only issue is whether he had symptoms earlier than that.

The WSJ report about the next day, October 1, states: “Ms. Hicks had learned about her own positive test results that [Thursday] morning and the information was kept to a tight circle of advisers, according to people familiar with the matter.” The results of Hick’s definitive PCR test, which presumably had been administered on the ground in Minnesota or on the plane, would certainly have been known the following morning. However, this only confirmed something that necessarily was already known to at least Trump and the so-called “tight circle of advisers.” Hicks presumably would have been given a rapid antigen test as soon as her symptoms appeared on Wednesday and, even in the unlikely event that her results were negative, they would have re-administered the test. (It was claimed that she had had a negative antigen test the morning of September 30.) The antigen test results have a general reputation for being unreliable but because of false negatives, not false positives. A positive antigen test would certainly need to be followed by a more sensitive and definitive PCR test but deferring to the PCR test was also being used to present an infection as officially beginning for purposes of White House announcements, and their constant repetition in news media, when the delayed PCR positive tests would come back. This would justify reaction at that point rather than an earlier point in time when the patient’s symptoms and a reasonably reliable rapid antigen test had already confirmed that the person was positive.

No announcement of the Hicks test results was made during the day or early evening on Thursday, According to the Wall Street Journal report, knowledge of the Hicks results was initially kept to a circle of people so tight that it did not include the press secretary, Kayleigh McEneny, who, although she had been on the plane with Hicks the day before, continued to refrain from wearing a mask and made no mention of Hicks in her press briefing Thursday morning. McEneny would soon test positive. The campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who had planned campaign events for Trump Thursday and Friday supposedly found out about Hicks from the press reports on Thursday evening. Stepien also tested positive.

The degree of complicity in the deceptions of October 1 of Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is open to speculation. A charitable construction is that he was willing to disseminate deliberate falsehoods but was a skeptic about the sustainability of Trump’s strategy for handling the situation and he wanted to give himself some cover for what he was doing. On the record he appears to have been the most important source of the information in the WSJ article about October 1. That story had a now forgotten claim that Trump had had a negative result from a rapid antigen test that morning, “according to a person familiar with the matter.” Negative antigen tests are easy to trot out as excuses for failures to react to evidence of infection because, if subsequent events show them to be inaccurate, it’s consistent with the known levels of false negatives. Such a claim, exculpatory of Trump, had to have its origin with Trump or someone in his immediate orbit. It smacks of someone putting something out that justified Trump’s behavior that day, as well as that person’s own complicity in that behavior. The source for the story presumably had no directly contravening information available to him at the time, although eventually there was no support for it from the medical staff. This source was nonetheless enough of a skeptic that he did not let himself be openly associated with the story. The story in fact was indisputably a fabrication by someone because if in fast there had been a negative test on the morning of October 1, Dr. Conley would have been happy to disclose it.

The WSJ article then proceeds to quote Meadows directly as saying “the White House learned of Miss Hicks’ results right as Marine One was leaving for New Jersey and the administration pulled some advisers off the trip.” The WSJ then notes that the helicopter left at 1:00 p.m. The image that the story creates is of Trump being told about Hick’s diagnosis with one foot in the door of the helicopter and of a last ditch removal of staff from the chopper. In fact, elsewhere in the story one of the people who was reportedly called off the trip is identified as Kayleigh McEneny, who says she was told forty-five minutes before she was supposed to leave. And, of course, the story also tells us that Hicks and a “tight circle of advisors” had known about the positive result since “morning.” Obviously, the claim that the White House found out “right as Marine One was leaving for New Jersey,” coupled with the since discarded claim that Trump had tested negative that morning, was a clumsy attempt to justify Trump’s decision to endanger the people on the helicopter, as well as the people in attendance at the fundraiser, by maintaining his schedule.

Although presumably long since aware that Hicks had tested positive, Trump got on the Marine One helicopter and flew to his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey for the fundraiser. He spoke indoors to mega-donors and to a larger group outside. No videotapes have surfaced but observers noted Trump’s visible fatigue and hoarse voice. When he returned to the White House, it was late afternoon. If you are to believe Trump, he did not actually do any test for COVID until some time in the evening when he and Melania submitted to a definitive PCR test. In fact, at a minimum, and again according to the WSJ story, the PCR test had been preceded by a positive rapid antigen test allegedly also done in the early evening. The claim about an early evening antigen test, again a part of the story that has received no attention, and presumably would be disavowed by the White House at this point, smacks of another after-the-fact attempt to clean up Trump’s story that was later discarded. Certainly, if it had reached the point where the President was going to have to be tested, you would do a rapid antigen test right away, and then confirm with a PCR test. In fact, of course, unless there was a conscious policy to never subject Trump to tests that could produce a positive result, there had been a positive antigen test well before Thursday evening.

By early Thursday evening Trump’s symptoms were presumably getting worse. By Friday morning, he would have alarmingly low oxygen levels, a 103 degree temperature, and would start treatment with the experimental Regeneron antibody cocktail. Nonetheless as of 8:07 pm, there had been no announcements about Hicks, let alone anything about Trump’s own possible infection.

8:07 is when Bloomberg News broke the Hicks story. It is unknown whether the decision to proceed with the Trump PCR test occurred before or after that event but it could well be that, notwithstanding deterioration in his physical condition, it was only the Bloomberg story that convinced Trump to submit to a “definitive” PCR test.

As Tucker Carlson handed off to Hannity less than an hour later, they discussed the Bloomberg report about Hicks. Nonetheless, Hannity proceeded to go with his previous script for the evening which involved a lot of discussion of the “radical socialist agenda” and Hunter Biden and nothing about Hicks. When Trump called into the show at around 9:45, he held the floor for approximately eleven minutes with hard to follow attacks on Biden before Hannity was finally able to get a question in about Hicks. Trump responded that he’d just heard about Hick’s test result, proceeded to make some strange remarks about how she’d probably gotten it from grateful members of the military who had insisted on hugging her, and only then blurted out that he and Melania had also been tested and were waiting for the results. He, of course, made no mention of having any symptoms himself. Aside from raising the issue, Hannity made no effort to delve into any aspect of the story and the discussion passed to other topics for the minute or two that was left.

By the time that Trump went on Hannity, the jig was up. The reluctance of both Hannity and Trump even then to talk about Hicks and Trump’s test for more than about a minute is telling but is a lagging indicator.

The foregoing saga proves that Trump knew for at least a day and a half that he was COVID positive, or at least that it was highly probable that he was and he could confirm his condition at any time by taking a rapid antigen test. He failed to disclose anything about it and recklessly endangered the health of many people in the process. Was this just a thirty-six hour reflexive reaction of a diseased and desperate man? Or would it have continued for as long as it would have taken for the cover-up to unravel? And, most critically, did the active deception in fact start earlier?

In considering this last question, the following should be taken into account:

1. Any plan to withhold disclosure of the certainty or likelihood that Trump had tested positive was delusional and would quickly unravel as people in the White House became aware of it. However, the critical thing to understand is that the question isn’t whether there was a feasible plan to hide an infection but whether there was a plan that Trump himself delusionally had and which he briefly, and with very few accomplices, implemented. One can imagine a situation where there were standing orders that, aside from the sworn-to-confidentiality medical professionals, only Trump himself would be given his own test results or, alternatively, that only he, or a very small group, would know that he wasn’t being tested nearly as much as was claimed. When Kayleigh McEneny said, long before Trump’s diagnosis, that he was being tested several times a day, she might have just been repeating what even senior people such as herself were being told. Also revealing is the forgotten but telling detail in the WSJ article discussed above about a supposed Trump negative test on Thursday morning, October 1. Perhaps the source of that story to the paper knew for sure that the story was false but, more likely, the person, although enough of a skeptic to not want his name associated with it, had no contrary evidence. Whoever was the source of the story, this person was close to Trump and, as late as Thursday morning, he was being fed a story by Trump, or someone else close to him, that he could plausibly claim to believe and that, if believed, would completely shut down any notion that Trump was engaging in any deception or reckless endangerment.
2. When one is talking about COVID tests, one is talking about something the timing of which would presumably be part of the routine of the medical staff, not Trump. The antigen test, which is what he was presumably being given, takes very little time and was being systematically administered to everyone with whom the President was coming in contact. You literally could not enter the White House or any room elsewhere in which Trump was present at any time of the day or night without taking one. Presumably, if the medical staff shows up at the appointed hour to administer the test to Trump, they stay until they’ve done the job. Thus, the only way that the tests were likely to be less frequent than the White House has said would be if Trump himself mandated it. It is unlikely that such a policy existed, but if it did, at its heart would likely be the notion on the part of Trump that there was no point in him knowing whether he was infected. The whole point of the testing was to protect him. However, if he himself was infected, why not wait until he had symptoms he couldn’t hide.
3. That said, it is at least as probable as not that Trump was tested at least every two or three days. This is because this is what he said was the case before the frequency of his tests was an issue. (Note that in his Town Hall with Samantha Guthrie he seemed to be saying that his tests were more frequent than every two or three days and so routine that he couldn’t be expected to remember when he took any particular test.) People are so anxious to prove that Trump was not being tested, which is the easiest inference to draw from the refusal to reveal his last negative test, that they don’t consider the possibility that taking him at his word as to the frequency of his testing is actually more incriminating. If he was tested as frequently as he says, it can be presumed that he was tested with a rapid antigen test some time between Friday, September 24 and when he went on the debate stage on Tuesday, September 29. More particularly, if there was some kind of regime of regular testing, it is hard to imagine that he wouldn’t have tested within twenty-four hours of the debate.
4. It is highly probable that Trump was both infectious and that his infection was detectable by testing in the twenty-four hours before the debate on September 29. He was almost certainly symptomatic on Wednesday, September 30. An infected person who develops symptoms is most infectious two days before they exhibit symptoms until a day after symptoms begin. Even if the symptoms did not begin until Thursday, this was only two days after the debate. Far more likely, Trump would have begun to have his maximum viral load no later than Monday, September 28, a day before the debate, and he could have been infectious before then.
5. It is more probable than not that Trump’s symptoms appeared in at least a mild form before Wednesday, September 30. On Friday, October 2, Trump had serious respiratory issues and his doctors were giving him treatments that would only be given to a patient that was on the verge of being sent to an ICU. The medium time for such severe symptoms to manifest themselves is five days after the first symptoms appear, i.e., ten days after the patient typically first becomes infected and seven days after the patient typically first becomes infectious and the virus should be detectable in a test. If these typical time lags applied to Trump he would have been infected around approximately Tuesday, September 22 and would have been infectious and his infection should have been detectable by Friday, September 25, a day before the infamous Amy Coney Barrett superspreader event on Saturday, September 26. Obviously, there is a wide range of possibilities here but you start from the median and the probabilities decrease from there. Trump could have started having mild and easily disguised symptoms or perhaps been largely asymptomatic but carrying a significant viral load in the week before his condition suddenly turned very bad. His ability to carry on when we now know he was symptomatic in the hours before his diagnosis is a matter of public record. That and the speed with which he has returned to public life since he left the hospital suggest an animal vigor that makes his being functional with minor COVID symptoms entirely plausible. The time span of his acknowledged period of symptoms is extremely short. It is possible but unlikely that he had no symptoms until Wednesday, September 30, that by Friday, October 2 his symptoms were quite severe and that by October 6 or 7 he was once again fit as a fiddle. This is a quite a truncated course of infection for someone who at least briefly was very sick. More likely, he had a detectable viral load during the weekend before the debate.
6. It is noteworthy, as the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has pointed out, that at a Rose Garden event on Monday, September 28, the day before the debate, the White House very uncharacteristically set up two lecterns, one for Trump and the other, fully ten feet from Trump, for the other speakers. Two days before, at the Amy Coney Barrett superspreader event, Trump and Barret spoke from the same lectern.
7. The protocol for the debate was that both sides would submit to a PCR test administered by the Cleveland Clinic that takes several hours for results. Neither Trump nor any of his entourage submitted to this test because, as the debate moderator Chris Wallace has said, they showed up too late for the results to be available prior to the debate. The fallback was that the campaigns were supposedly on the “honor system.” It was known that no one had access to Trump or Biden without submitting to an antigen test and that Biden himself was tested daily. However, there was no representation at the time that Trump himself had been tested on the day of the debate and at his recent Town Hall Trump claimed to have no specific memory of whether he was tested on that day. Obviously Trump didn’t have a negative test on September 29 because if he did, he would have disclosed it. In the absence of such a test, the inference is being drawn that Trump wasn’t tested due to arrogance, disdain for his commitments, or reckless inattention. However, it is at least as possible that the fact that the Trump camp didn’t take the Cleveland Clinic test was intentional with Trump either purposely showing up late or simply refusing to take the test on the pretext that the results wouldn’t be available until after the debate, with the Clinic or the Debate Commission choosing not to make an issue of it. This in turn would have been due to the fact that Trump, and perhaps no one other than his doctors, already knew that he had tested positive.

That Trump intended to withhold information about his known or likely infection is an incendiary charge. Democrats, in contrast to Republicans, tend to present the public with thought-provoking evidence about Trump or refusals by Trump to make reasonable disclosures and they then invite the public to draw conclusions from it that they are largely themselves reluctant to spell out. They are focused on and deferential to legal processes and/or investigative journalists when it comes to getting to the bottom of things. Let the Republicans go low with show-me-the-birth-certificate birtherism. Democrats go high waiting for indictments or Pulitzer-prize winning “gotcha” scoops from the New York Times. As for the investigative journalists, their reputable ranks trade in leaked hard direct evidence leavened with understatement, not insinuation based on circumstantial evidence. All this is as it should be up to a point but sometimes the timing is off. Sometimes when time is short, and there is clear stonewalling, as there was with Trump’s taxes and as there is now about Trump’s COVID tests, you need to look at the evidence as it is likely to remain for the time available to you. And having done so, you should have the audacity to make accusations that are well supported by the circumstantial evidence and which, after all, Trump is welcome to disprove by ceasing to stonewall.

There is an abundance of circumstantial evidence that in its totality shows a clear if delusional policy of withholding information regarding Trump’s own known or likely infection in the hope that it would somehow never come to light. It is not too late for Democrats and the press to be demanding not just Trump’s “last negative test” but all tests going back to approximately Monday, September 21, supported by a statement from his doctor, Sean Conley, not the White House. The same Dr. Conley who in response to questions about the “last negative test,” has responded: “I don’t want to move backwards.”