Following The Guardian’s publication of a story on Wednesday that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ forthcoming book claims that then-President Donald Trump tested positive for coronavirus three days before his first debate against Joe Biden, Trump released a statement denying the charge.
"The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News," Trump's statement said. "In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate."
Meadows said in the book — "The Chief’s Chief," to be published next week — that Trump returned a negative result from a different test shortly after the positive, according to The Guardian, which said it had obtained a copy of the book.
Meadows said Trump’s positive result was on Sept. 26 as the president traveled to a rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
Meadows said the positive test had been carried out with an old model kit and then it was repeated with "the Binax system, which came back negative" a short time later.
Meadows said that Trump took that result as "full permission to press on as if nothing had happened," although Meadows said he "instructed everyone in his immediate circle to treat him as if he was positive" throughout the Pennsylvania trip, The Guardian reported.
The debate was three days later. The host, Chris Wallace of Fox News, later said that Trump was not tested before the showdown with Biden, because the president arrived late, with Wallace saying that organizers relied on the honor system.
However, the White House had not revealed that Trump had tested positive and then negative three days earlier, according to The Guardian.
Three days after the debate, on Oct. 2, Trump announced that he was positive with coronavirus.
Meadows explained his own role in allowing the president to maintain a regular schedule after the first positive test by saying in the book that "I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks ... but I also didn’t want to alarm the public if there was nothing to worry about — which according to the new, much more accurate test, there was not," The Guardian reported.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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