President Trump said Monday that he has not seen his national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, recently after it was announced that the top administration official had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
After stopping to speak to the media before leaving the White House, Trump did not offer any further details on the O’Brien case, saying only that he had not been in recent contact with him and did not know when he tested positive for COVID- 19. .
A senior administration official confirmed to Fox News on Monday that O’Brien had tested positive for the infection, making him the highest-ranking member of the administration to contract the disease.
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O’Brien contracted the virus outside the White House, the official said. The national security adviser had recently traveled to France to meet with President Emmanuel Macron and was also in a family gathering.
The news comes days after a cafeteria and another restaurant on the White House grounds closed because a worker tested positive for COVID-19. Those locations were in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses the National Security Council. However, according to the General Services Administration (which oversees the Eisenhower Building), the White House Medical Unit was tracking contacts and determined that the possibility of retransmission of the virus was very low.
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O’Brien is the last member of the administration to contract the disease. In May, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, tested positive, months after another Pence staff member became the first White House employee to test positive.
In June, two Secret Service members tested positive after a Trump campaign event in Tulsa, Okla. As a result, other Secret Service officials who had been present during the event were told to stay home and quarantined for 14 days.
John Roberts and Ronn Blitzer of Fox News contributed to this report.
