President Trump said he has not recently seen national security adviser Robert O’Brien, and that he does not know when his national security adviser first tested positive for Covid-19.
“I haven’t seen him lately,” Trump told reporters before leaving the White House for North Carolina on Monday afternoon. “I haven’t seen him, I’ll call him later,” he added.
Trump replied “I don’t know” when asked when O’Brien first tested positive.
Some background: As CNN previously reported, O’Brien’s diagnosis marks the highest-ranking Trump administration official known to have tested positive. It is unclear when O’Brien last met with Trump.
Their last public appearance together was more than two weeks ago during a visit to the United States Southern Command in Miami on July 10.
O’Brien is experiencing “mild symptoms” and “isolates himself and works from a safe place off-site,” according to an unnamed White House statement to the press.
That statement confirmed O’Brien’s test results to journalists before his staff was formally informed. Several members of the National Security Council staff told CNN that they were not informed that O’Brien tested positive and learned of the news from media reports.
O’Brien, one of Trump’s top advisers, recently returned from Europe, where he and his top deputy met with officials from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy.
A senior administration official told CNN that O’Brien has been working from home since last week. A family source said O’Brien was the last in the office last Thursday, when he abruptly left the White House.
The White House statement said “there is no risk of exposure to the president or vice president.”
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