Donald Trump say lawyer Rudy Giuliani tests positive for Covid
Donald Trump has tweeted that his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for coronavirus.
The president confirmed in a Sunday tweet that the former New York mayor had tested positive.
Mr Giuliani has traveled extensively to battleground states in recent weeks in an effort to help Trump subvert his election loss. Trump wished Mr Giuliani a speedy recovery. “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!” Trump wrote in his tweet. Giuliani made an appearance earlier on Sunday on Fox News to speak about his legal challenges in several states on behalf of Trump.
The diagnosis comes more than a month after Mr Trump lost his re-election bid and more than two months after Mr Trump was ill with the virus in early October.
Since then, a flurry of administration officials and others in Mr Trump’s orbit have also tested positive, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development.
Last month, Mr Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, a special assistant to Mr Trump, said he tested positive for coronavirus.
“I am experiencing mild symptoms, and am following all appropriate protocols, including being in quarantine and conducting contact tracing,” the younger Giuliani said in a November 20 tweet disclosing his Covid-19 positive test.
The extraordinary spread among Mr Trump’s associates underscores the cavalier approach the president has taken to a virus that has now killed more than 280,000 people in the US alone.
Those infected also include the vice president, his chief of staff, the White House press secretary, advisers Hope Hicks and Stephen Miller, as well as Mr Trump’s campaign manager and the chair of the Republican National Committee.
Mr Trump spent the final days of his campaign trying to persuade the American public that the virus was receding, and repeatedly claimed it would miraculously “disappear” after November 3. Instead, the country is experiencing a record-breaking spike in infections.
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr Deborah Birx on Sunday offered tacit criticism of Mr Trump’s attitude on the virus during an interview on NBC.
Asked about Mr Trump and other administration members flouting public health experts’ warnings to avoid large gatherings and calls to wear masks, Dr Birx replied that some leaders are “parroting” myths and called the pandemic “the worst event that this country will face”.
“And I think our job is to constantly say those are myths, they are wrong and you can see the evidence-base,” Dr Birx added.