Donald Trump’s re-election campaign director Brad Parscale is one of the campaign staff members in near-quarantine after attending a rally in Oklahoma last weekend, where eight campaign aides tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh announced in a conference call Thursday that “as a precautionary measure,” the staff who made the trip to Tulsa was “working remotely” and would be screened for COVID before go back to work. When asked by The Daily Beast in a follow-up email if self-imposed job isolation applied to the campaign manager, Murtaugh said, “Everyone in Tulsa, yes.”
Parscale returned to his Florida home after the Tulsa rally, and Murtaugh told The Daily Beast that he flew commercial.
Sources close to the campaign described the quarantine measure as a precaution, and said the campaign plans to step up its coronavirus testing regimen in the future to avoid similar incidents. A source said dozens of employees had attended the Tulsa rally.
After the post, Murtaugh sent an email saying that everyone “who flew home from Tulsa tested negative before leaving.” The reason they still worked from home, he added, was as a “precaution.”
Several agents from the US Secret Service were also quarantined after accompanying the president to the rally, CNN reported this week.
Despite fears that the event could lead to the spread of the virus, many luminaries in Trump’s orbit descended on Tulsa for the rally. President Eric’s son gave an opening speech, as did Vice President Mike Pence. Several Republican National Committee officials and White House employees also attended the Tulsa rally, including Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who said she would be there without a face mask. McEnany did not respond to a request for comment, though employees who are very close to the president are screened daily for the virus.
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