This seems terrible - either he'll get off lightly in which case he'll start shouting how Covid is no big deal, or he'll get a serious case in which case Mike Pence becomes Potus either temporarily or permanently
@PrivatePansy Thing is, if Pence becomes POTUS, he'd have to run against Biden, and I'm not sure how that would affect the elections this late in the race
@Stormblessed Oh great this happens right around the time Trump starts to play the victim card, stealing the one liberal narrative every single conservative hates. Let's see how the MAGA people eat it up.
@EddieKal It wouldn't even surprise me if he faked it, skips a debate due to this, and then announces that he's well again, and the virus isn't a big deal
@MadScientist He and his people would totally do something like that. I hope to God this is a false positive and he reports negative soon. Because I really hope this is not going to be his clincher in the election.
If Trump dies things are just gonna be worse. Although we often joke about the Trump dynasty and rip on his screamingly outrageous nepotism, if Trump dies of course Junior won't automatically take over. But it would without a doubt give Ivanka, Junior, even Barron instant political boosts. It would pave the way for Ivanka to take over the Trump empire and amass huge numbers of MAGA followers.
Even though Biden and Trump are both some of the least suited candidates possible, it's still really disrespectful to want either of them to die from COVID. And it's REALLY dumb to imply that China deliberately started this pandemic in an attempt to infect Trump
The human race has seen a whole lot of contagious diseases and it always has to start somewhere. Just because a really big one started in China this time doesn't mean it was China's fault.
@Yuuki Yeah, and the Spanish Flu was called that because Spain was pretty much the only country that heavily reported on it, because most of the rest of the developed world was still finishing up a war, and the news about the flu in the trenches was heavily suppressed
@Jolenealaska Bit weird given that The Hill is a right-leaning news outlet, though far closer to the center than pretty much any other "right-leaning" news outlet.
@Yuuki Yeah and I think in the 80s AIDS was called an African disease and then "gay men's cancer", as if Africa and the LGBT community were to blame. Ludicrous.
Honestly the debate being in person was already stupid enough. It should've been done virtually, or at least have the candidates much, much further apart.
GOP: we should go ahead with Pence VS Baiden Dems: you have to select a runner up from when you was selecting who will be leader, oh wait, no one challenged Trump, Baiden then wins by default GOP: LINE OF SUCCESSION! Dems: END AT THE ELECTION!
a number of news media outlets here in Australia like Paul Murry, Credlin, The Project, are suggesting that Trump is lying about his infection. not a horrible thing to say because he is the Boy who Cried Wolf but has lied about way more things
@Jolenealaska Just as likely that Trump infected Hicks, not the other way around. In his call yesterday with Hannity, he was slinging some real weird "she got infected by the military" shit, maybe to deflect from his own responsibility (this was before he announced he had it as well)
(just in case you're curious who else could be at risk)
Can't point to any particular tweet, but several people are pointing out something very important: The White House did not voluntarily disclose any of this
> Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, multiple sources say. She has mild symptoms. She was last with POTUS last Friday and has been in Michigan since then. - Maggie Haberman
Ah, it was in the NYTimes article:
> “White House officials had hoped to keep the news about Ms. Hicks from becoming public, to no avail.” - tweet with link
From my last link above, a reminder that one weird part of a reporter/editor's job is to pre-write stories just in case they're needed:
> I’ve been writing a version of the Donald Trump Has The Coronavirus story since March, when news broke that the president had potentially been exposed to the virus at Mar-a-Lago. I, along with BuzzFeed News’ science editor, have regularly updated that prewritten story ever since with more and more grim updates about the virus and the administration’s botched response. I still woke up shocked to see that it was published, even after the Hope Hicks news Thursday night.
Wonder if they're pre-writing different versions of stories depending on how Trump's (or Melania's) illness progresses
yep. Here's the mentioned pre-written (and updated) article, btw. Does seem to be much more fully detailed that would have been possible to throw together in the last few hours:
@Memor-X I doubt this is happening, but it may make some sense to lie about having it when he actually doesn't. "Have" it, recover in three days with no or minimal symptoms, pick up a few sympathy votes and get to use yourself as an example of "see, it ain't so bad".
Of course, with recovery rates, that's likely to be the case whether he truly has it or not
@Nzall True. You can sometimes tell when they haven't done this, that they drop a headline with a single brief paragraph at first, then flesh it out over the next hour in bits and pieces
And on the other hand, you generally have a couple of moments when not much news happens and it's better to fill those hours (example: Friday generally doesn't have much non-emergency news) with preparing texts so you can be early
@BradC Yeah, BBC does that often
And it often happens in case of the ENTIRELY unexpected, like when in early August Beirut exploded
@Nzall Yep. Just hadn't ever through about it. I mean, we've seen the occasional accidental slip up of a pre-written obituary getting released, I just never gave it much through that this is done much more widely
I mean, two versions of an article depending on who wins an election, I guess. Although I heard some outlets never bothered to prepare a "Trump wins" version in 2016
@BradC it also makes sense from a completeness perspective. As in, if you start an article early and keep it updated with major events, you don't have to worry about a crucial event not being mentioned in your article.
Yep. I'd imagine that even though pre-writing is an old technique (at least for obits), with immediate digital publishing it is that much more important
Apple: We care about the environment, so we'll recycle your old iDevices Recycling company: Some of these devices are still good! Let's reuse them Also Apple: Wait, no https://9to5mac.com/2020/10/01/apple-catches-electronics-recycler-illegally-reselling-over-100000-iphones-ipads-apple-watches/
> Apple has sued the Canadian electronics recycling company Geep after it was caught illegally selling over 100,000 Apple devices that were supposed to be recycled. Geep is saying that the responsibility should fall on the three employees that acted on their own but an interesting twist here is that they were reportedly Geep executives.
> Two Republicans in close contact with the White House told me that Trump’s symptoms have included a cough and fever. Melania is said to be asymptomatic. “They are worried about the president because of his age,” one of the sources said.
> Sources said Trump will likely want to be seen in public as soon as possible to blunt the narrative that he is sidelined by the virus he’s spent the last six months downplaying. “He’s going to want to get out there a lot sooner than people think,” the former official said. “But it will be hard to hide if he’s sick. Also, who will want to be in a room with him?”
> Meanwhile, Hicks has experienced more pronounced symptoms than the president. Two sources said she has had a high fever and a cough, with one source adding she lost her sense of smell. Hicks is said to be frustrated with Trump for taking such a cavalier approach to the virus. She was one of the few West Wing staffers to wear a mask in meetings, which her colleagues chided her for. “She was made fun of because she wore a mask,” a friend said.
> Sources told me Hicks is also upset that news coverage has made it appear that she gave Trump the virus, when in fact no one knows where he got it. “It’s so unfair she’s sort of being blamed,” the friend told me.
@MBraedley A lot of speculation that the Amy Comey Barrett announcement event on Saturday might have been a superspreader event - multiple people from that event are now testing positive, and the timing seems right
> As the Supreme Court nominee, Barrett is now tested daily and most recently had a negative test for covid-19 Friday morning, according to deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere.
> Fox News anchor Chris Wallace had a lot of thoughts on Friday morning following the massive news that President Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, scolding the Trump family for declining to wear masks at Tuesday’s debate and then, in a later segment, dismissing the expertise of the president’s Fox-friendly coronavirus adviser.
> Buried lede in Notre Dame president's statement about SCOTUS event: > He says after White House gave guests COVID tests, "we were notified that we had all tested negative and were told that it was safe to remove our masks."
> Chris Wallace just said on Fox that Trump arrived too late in Cleveland to have been tested by the clinic and that there was an "honor system" for the candidates to have arrived after already testing negative.
> President Trump has a fever, per a source; and is fatigued and taking an experimental antibody cocktail, per a letter from his physician. - Jake Tapper
@PrivatePansy I think they might be able to detect large-scale abuse of that. But individual abuse is probably not distinguishable from regular use of the reset function, so I certainly wouldn't just believe that statement
@MadScientist That's what I thought too. There might be some heuristics like checking if the IP address of the reset came from ones regularly used by the user who requested, but it's obviously not definitive
@PrivatePansy If Iran tried to use this with a database of emails to detect all the gays, that certainly would be something they could see. But smaller stuff, I see no chance
@TimStone I think that means that they can't exclude that he might need intubation
I would suspect that anything below intensive care could be done at the White House
It's not as if expense is an issue there, they could easily justify putting a physician or two there full time
I mean it does give them the opportunity to do whatever is necessary immediately in the setting, so given the stakes I could see why they'd encourage it even in a moderate case, but unfortunately you can't believe reports about the President's health even when it's not this President so here we are
@TimStone With the president I think you never can ignore the messaging and appearances. So I would think that even with e.g. Obama or Bush they would not go to a hospital unnecessarily, simply because this kind of stuff tends to seriously spook people
I think a president other than Trump could have sold it as a precaution in this case. As they could use it to emphasize that Covid is dangerous and require intensive care quickly
So if Trump dies during the election due to Covid.... does Pence automatically become the one running for president?
I know Pence would be become the president as well, but this close to the election I'm assuming he'd also effectively step up an be running for president in his place?
@Wipqozn No precedent for this situation; GOP party rules say they can replace a candidate at any time if needed, so yeah, most likely is that any Trump/Pence votes go to Pence/Ivanka?? (shudder)
I don't expect him to die, but simply being hospitalized is pretty much flipping the board on the entire campaign, who knows what effects that will have
@TimStone that really doesn't sound like Trump. He's obviously not in critical condition at this point, but making this statement and going to Walter Reed is also not something I'd assume he would make without reason
It was only supposed to infect other people's faces though
I went to the ER for extended heart palpitations the other week and while it was fine (?) per tests the feeling I could actually die really messed me up
lol Herman Cain's account tweet about this is just too much
