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Donald Trump Jr.
Photographer: Scott Olson / Getty Images
Photographer: Scott Olson / Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week and is isolating himself, according to three people familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Trump Jr. said in a statement he was asymptomatic for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Trump Jr. joins dozens of people associated with the president who have been infected with the virus, including Trump himself. Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew Giuliani, who is a White House aide, announced on Twitter on Friday that he had tested positive. Also, an assistant to Vice President Mike Pence, Hannah MacInnis, tested positive earlier this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Several Pence associates were infected, including his communications director, who was previously his press secretary, and his chief of staff. Pence himself did not.
Giuliani attended a press conference his father hosted on Thursday in which he and other lawyers allied with Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that voter fraud led to the president’s defeat for re-election. One of the lawyers, Jenna Ellis, said on Twitter Friday that she and Rudy Giuliani had tested negative for the infection.
The coronavirus pandemic is increasing across the country, with new cases steadily 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 has helped cost him the White House.
Earlier this month, in the days following the presidential election, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows told his associates he had coronavirus. It was not immediately clear when Meadows learned he had contracted the virus or if he had developed symptoms of Covid-19.
Bloomberg News previously reported that a number of other people who attended a November 3 election party at the White House – including Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Trump campaign adviser David Bossie – have also contracted the virus.
Others in the president’s orbit, like longtime adviser Corey Lewandowski and Republican lobbyist Jeff Miller, also tested positive for the virus in the days following the party. About 200 people attended the party, mingling nearby largely without a mask. But it is not certain that those who attended the party contracted the virus during the event.
More than four dozen people associated with Trump or the White House have been infected with the virus, including the president, his wife, Melania, and his youngest son, Barron.
(Corrects aide’s name in third paragraph, makes the distinction that Pence’s current communications director was previously press secretary.)
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