Donald Trump tests positive for coronavirus as America’s wildest year takes another dramatic turn

Just when you think 2020 couldn’t get much wilder, it does.

The President of the United States and his wife Melania have just tested positive for COVID-19, right in the middle of an intense election campaign.

We found out via a Trump Tweet.

What timing!

Just 33 days from an election that the President is desperate to win, his rallies are gone, the remaining debates potentially cancelled.

The man trailing in the polls now has to stay at home, and in the process, maybe lose that home to Joe Biden.

Already, Donald Trump was questioning if he would bother with the final two debates if the rules of engagement were changed.

And he accused his Democratic rival of not wanting a second round following the chaotic and ugly first, which the President claimed as a clear win for him.

Now it’s Donald Trump the no-show, because he can’t show.

And he will have to watch as Joe Biden tours the country, sells his message and potentially makes hay from Trump’s illness.

At the very time the President was attempting to shift the focus away from COVID-19 he’s right in the middle of it.

There will be sympathetic words from his rivals.

How did this happen?

Donald Trump’s team will no doubt say they did everything they could to protect the President and the first lady.

Certainly, most visitors to the White House were tested before being allowed to get close to him — as was the regular media pack that follows him.

But this is a man who held large rallies indoors and outside.

He claimed to support masks, but mocked Biden for wearing one.

In that infamous first debate, Biden reminded the President of advice from his own director of the Centres for Disease Control that 100,000 lives could be saved if everyone wore masks for three or four months.

Initially it was revealed his friend and aide Hope Hicks had tested positive and had been in close contact with the President and his entourage.

Will we ever really know where it came from?

Could the President have picked it up at one of his rallies packed with mainly mask-free supporters yelling their support?

What we can assume is that this will alter the balance of an already distorted campaign.

What this means for the election

Joe Biden has been the cautious one, derided by the President for staying at home in his basement during the darkest days of the pandemic.

And now it will be Biden roaming free, able to shore up key states, and able to take the campaign to the places it’s needed most.

President Trump will be in frustrating isolation at the White House. His campaign will have to recalibrate — and fast.

How can he communicate with his adoring base? Will he turn to social media or conduct rallies via video link?

Rewind just eight months and the President had a strong economic message to send to voters, with low levels of unemployment and a booming stock market.

Now he’s caught the very virus he blames on China.

The nation has been battered and it is Biden — not him — with the free run of the country.

You could call it really bad luck.

But some will say if he’d done more to stop the spread of the virus he, and millions of Americans, may never have caught it in the first place.

Succession questions emerge in the final weeks of a campaign

The US Constitution states that Vice-President Mike Pence would step in to take over executive duties — assuming he hasn’t caught it too.

High office assures you of the best medical help available.

But remember that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taken to an Intensive Care Unit in April when his own case of COVID-19 turned serious and left him gasping for breath.

The succession questions in the middle of an election and a pandemic may seem preposterous.

But here’s where we’re at: Mr and Mrs Trump are stuck inside the White House, with an election to win or lose in just four and a half weeks.

Donald Trump’s doctor says both he and the first lady are well and that he expects the President to continue to carry out his duties “without disruption”.

The President’s life plans have already been severely disrupted.

First he has to get through the illness.

But then he will somehow have to escape from this political sinkhole that will add yet another weird layer to this disrupted and divided election campaign.

America didn’t need this.

The economy is not healthy, a deadly virus is still infecting 40,000 Americans a day and now the President is in quarantine.

Will it change the course or outcome of this election?

It’s 2020. Anything can happen

 

 

Courtesy: ABC