Updated: November 21, 2020 9:41:12 am
Donald Trump Jr. Photographer: Scott Olson / Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week and is in isolation, according to three people familiar with the matter.
A spokesman for Trump Jr. said in a statement that he has no symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Trump Jr. joins the dozens of people associated with the president who have been infected by the virus, including Trump himself. On Friday, Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew Giuliani, who is a White House aide, announced on Twitter that he had tested positive. Additionally, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Hannah MacInnis, tested positive earlier this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Several of Pence’s aides have been infected, including his communications director, who had previously been his press secretary, and his chief of staff. Pence himself has not.
Giuliani attended a press conference offered by his father on Thursday, where he and other lawyers allied to Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that election fraud had led to the president’s defeat for reelection. One of the attorneys, Jenna Ellis, said on Twitter Friday that she and Rudy Giuliani tested negative for infection.
The coronavirus pandemic is increasing across the country, with new cases regularly exceeding 150,000 a day since last week. More than 254,000 Americans have died from the virus since February. Trump’s handling of the pandemic helped cost him the White House.
Earlier this month, in the days after the presidential election, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told associates that he had coronavirus. It was not immediately clear when Meadows learned that he had contracted the virus or if he had developed symptoms of Covid-19.
Bloomberg News previously reported that other people who attended a Nov. 3 election party at the White House, including Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Trump’s campaign adviser David Bossie, also contracted the virus.
Others in the president’s orbit, such as former aide Corey Lewandowski and Republican lobbyist Jeff Miller, tested positive for the virus, also in the days after the party. Approximately 200 people attended the party, mingling indoors largely without masks. But it is not known for sure if those who attended the party contracted the virus at the event.
More than four dozen people associated with Trump or the White House have been infected by the virus, including the president, his wife, Melania, and their youngest son, Barron.
On Thursday, the administration’s coronavirus task force, led by Pence, briefed reporters at the White House for the first time since April, after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They will recommend earlier that Americans cancel Thanksgiving travel plans.
Pence and members of the task force touted progress in developing potential vaccines and preparing to distribute them once they become available. He also said that the administration does not support another national blockade.
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