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A crowded rose garden ceremony last Saturday in which Donald Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his supreme court candidate has come under scrutiny after at least seven people present tested positive for coronavirus, including the president himself. .
On Friday, the president’s former adviser, Kellyanne Conway, announced that she had tested positive and had “mild” symptoms.
Two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Mike Lee, also announced that they also tested positive.
Lee, who did not wear a mask at the White House event, said he had “symptoms consistent with longstanding allergies.” Tillis, who did wear a mask, said she has no symptoms. Both said they will be quarantined for 10 days, ending just before Barrett’s confirmation hearings begin on October 12.
Both senators are on the Senate judicial committee, raising questions about upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings and whether more senators may have been discovered.
The president of the University of Notre Dame, John Jenkins, was also later diagnosed with the disease.
Trump was hospitalized on Friday, and the White House said he would spend “a few days” at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after his diagnosis.
Speculation is growing that the event, which took place on September 25, could have been the source of Trump’s infection and possibly a super-spread event as confirmed cases surge. Barrett said Friday that he had not tested positive for the virus.
The event was Trump’s formal announcement that he was nominating Barrett to fill the seat of progressive champion Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the supreme court. Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, had made it clear that his dying wish was for his court seat not to be filled “until a new president is installed,” and Democrats have argued that his replacement should not be confirmed until later. of the 2020 elections.
A visual guide produced by Politico demonstrated the growing number of Trump officials and allies who have tested positive for coronavirus since attending the ceremony. Many of those who have since announced they have tested positive for the virus were sitting together.
As Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post pointed out, the ceremony presidents were not socially estranged.
All they had to do was move the chairs away. They couldn’t even do the bare minimum. People should be fired for this. People would be fired for this in a normal manager. https://t.co/u73aoYQqa4
– Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) October 3, 2020
Conway tweeted on Friday that he has a mild cough and feels fine. “I started a quarantine process in consultation with the doctors,” he added.
The White House Correspondents Association said an anonymous journalist who attended the event also tested positive, according to ABC News.
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