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By Reuters 
2h ago
Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Amy B Wang
Washington – The presidential campaign was rocked this weekend by a new outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the White House that infected at least five aides or advisers to Vice President Mike Pence, which President Donald Trump’s top staff member acknowledged on Sunday that he had tried to avoid revealing to the government. public.
With the election just over a week away, the new White House outbreak highlighted the administration’s failure to contain the pandemic, as hospitalizations surge across much of the United States and new daily cases hit record highs. .
The outbreak around Pence, who chairs the White House coronavirus task force, undermines the argument Trump has been making to voters that the country is “turning around,” as the president put it at a rally. Sunday in New Hampshire.
To further complicate Trump’s campaign speech, on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows made an extraordinary admission that the administration had effectively given up on trying to curb the spread of the virus.
“We are not going to control the pandemic,” Meadows said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We are going to control the fact that we receive vaccines, therapies and other mitigations.”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who regularly wears a mask on the campaign trail and strictly adheres to social distancing guidelines, sought to capitalize on the comment.
“This was not a slip by Meadows; it was a heartfelt acknowledgment of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been since the beginning of this crisis: wave the white flag of defeat and hope that, by ignoring it, the virus would just disappear.” “Biden said in a statement.” He hasn’t and he won’t.
Some in the vice president’s office suggested that White House doctors should issue a statement saying that Short was positive and that Pence was still fine to travel. But that idea was scrapped by Meadows and others, authorities said.
The outbreak in Pence’s orbit comes about three weeks after Trump was hospitalized with the virus and several of his advisers tested positive. Officials said the new list of those infected includes the vice president’s chief of staff, Marc Short; its main external political advisor, Marty Obst; his personal assistant Zach Bauer, known as a “man of the body”, who accompanies him throughout his day; and two other staff members.
Pence has been in close contact with Short in recent days, but spokesman Devin O’Malley said Vice President and Second Lady Karen Pence tested negative for the virus on Saturday and Sunday and have been in “good health.”
Some White House advisers said they did not want attention to the outbreak because it would highlight the pandemic in the final week of the campaign and raise questions about the administration’s handling of it.
The vice president continued his busy travel schedule Sunday, flying to North Carolina for an evening rally in Kinston. He told his aides that he was determined to keep his appearances for the week despite possible exposure, regardless of the guidelines, authorities said.
Some aides said they would have preferred tele-rallies because if the vice president gets infected while on tour in the final days of the campaign, it will likely become big news for several days.
On Monday, Pence is expected to visit the Capitol to chair the Senate vote to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., condemned Pence’s plans to continue scheduled events. “God help us,” Schumer said in a speech Sunday in the Senate.
O’Malley said Pence was allowed to travel in consultation with White House doctors. “While Vice President Pence is considered a close contact with Mr. Short, in consultation with the White House Medical Unit, the Vice President will maintain his schedule in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel,” O’Malley said. in a statement Saturday. night.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people stay home for 14 days after possible exposure and maintain social distance at all times. The CDC allows an exemption for “critical infrastructure workers” who do not experience symptoms as long as they socially distance themselves and cover their faces at all times.
Meadows defended the characterization of Pence’s campaign activity as “essential” work, saying the vice president had assured him Saturday night that he would socially distance himself and wear a mask except when making comments.
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien similarly defended Pence’s travel decision, claiming that the vice president was “following all CDC rules.”
“Essential workers who go out, campaign and vote are as essential as the things we can do as Americans,” O’Brien told reporters Sunday.
This is in stark contrast to the way Biden’s campaign dealt with recent infections among vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ traveling entourage. On October 15, the morning after two people in Harris’s orbit tested positive, the Biden campaign issued a lengthy statement identifying the individuals and detailing their contact with Senator Harris, D-California, and other staff members. , your activities in the days leading up to your positive tests, and the dates of Harris’s most recent negative tests.
Although Harris had not been in close contact with any of the people, as defined by the CDC at the time, he called off his trip for that weekend.
When asked Sunday about Pence’s decision to continue campaigning in person despite the new outbreak on his team, Harris told reporters: “You should follow the guidelines. We are doing it. I think we have modeled the correct behavior and well, and they should take our lead. “
The latest outbreak underscored the absence of some basic health safety protocols at the White House and at Trump and Pence campaign events, where the two and their aides routinely flout CDC recommendations and health guidelines. state or local. They don’t wear masks regularly, nor do they practice social distancing. Aboard Air Force Two, where Pence and his team have spent considerable time in recent weeks traveling between campaign stops, officials often do not wear masks.
Meadows and Short have been among the loudest skeptics of coronavirus restrictions within the administration, their aides said, and have downplayed the threat of the virus and the pressure for health security precautions at the White House.
The first member of Pence’s circle to be diagnosed with the virus was Obst, a longtime adviser who helps manage the vice president’s political affairs from outside the government. Obst tested positive Tuesday after flying aboard Air Force Two with Pence, according to two administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to frankly discuss the internal deliberations.
Short, who tested positive for the virus on Saturday afternoon, has told others that he believes he contracted it from Obst.
Bauer tested positive while in isolation, which the aide began Tuesday after having close contact with Obst, one of the officials said. Two other people in Pence’s office also tested positive.
Meadows tried to keep details about infections within Pence’s orbit secret and objected to the vice president’s office releasing such information, according to two officials. It wasn’t until Saturday night that the media reported Short and Obst infections.
Meadows acknowledged in his interview with CNN that he had tried to suppress information about the outbreak.
“Sharing personal information is not something we should do, it is not something we really do, unless it’s the vice president or the president or someone very close to them where there are people in danger,” Meadows told host Jake Tapper.
New coronavirus cases in the United States hit an all-time high on Friday and hospitalizations have skyrocketed, surpassing the mark set during the summer as cases spiked in the Sun Belt in particular.
Cases this fall have risen rapidly in several Republican-leaning states and counties, according to a recent analysis of health data by scientists at Harvard University.
Campaigning over the weekend, Trump tried to present an alternate reality. At a rally Sunday in Londonderry, NH, Trump said the pandemic would be over soon thanks to a possible vaccine, which he said “will be delivered quickly.”
“That will quickly end the pandemic; it is ending anyway,” Trump said. “We are rounding up the turn, but the vaccine will eliminate it quickly, because we want normal life to resume. A normal life. We just want a normal, normal life.”
Trump also hoped to divert attention from the pandemic in his final stretch of the campaign, although the new outbreak in the White House could change that strategy.
At a rally Saturday in North Carolina, where dozens of unmasked attendees stood shoulder to shoulder, Trump downplayed the dangers of the virus and predicted that the media would stop covering the pandemic after Election Day.
“Turn on the TV: ‘covid, covid, covid, covid, covid.’ A plane crashes, 500 people die, they don’t talk about it: ‘covid, covid, covid, covid,'” Trump said. “By the way, on November 4, he won’t find out anymore.”
The president was referring to a hypothetical plane crash. Many more than 500 people have been dying every day in the United States from the coronavirus.
In Arkansas, where the rate of coronavirus infection and hospitalizations are on the rise, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said that Trump’s message about the turn of the country conflicts with reality on the ground in Arkansas, which he described as “very worrying”. “
“Everybody knows that we are going through a very difficult crisis and that it will probably get worse as we move into the winter,” Hutchinson said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Hutchinson also disagreed with Trump’s reluctance to wear a mask or strongly support others to wear it, despite saying he agrees with wearing the mask.
“It makes it confusing,” she told host Margaret Brennan. “I mean, he made it very clear that wearing a mask is important. I saw him wear a mask at the polls yesterday, but obviously with the rallies, there are mixed messages there.”
Biden has made the pandemic the centerpiece of his campaign and has tried to criticize Trump for mishandling the crisis.
“I told him in the debate that we are not learning to live with it. We are learning to die with it! And it’s wrong,” Biden said Saturday at a drive-in theater in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia’s outer ring suburb.
The event had all the hallmarks of a Biden campaign event in this era, and was a visual contrast to Trump’s rallies. He spoke to lines of cars in the Bucks County Community College parking lot, allowing attendees to remain socially distanced. Biden and his wife, Jill, took the stage wearing masks, but took them off on the lectern.
“I don’t like the idea of all this distance, but it is necessary,” Biden said, as the drivers honked in response. “What we don’t want to do is become super diffusers.”
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