Trump's pre-spin seems to blame military, police interactions for coronavirus diagnosis [View all]

The Fix • Analysis

Trump’s pre-spin seems to blame military, police interactions for coronavirus diagnosis

By Aaron Blake
Oct. 2, 2020 at 9:37 a.m. EDT

A couple of weeks ago, President Trump was fending off a brutal, anonymously sourced story in the Atlantic about comments he had allegedly made disparaging military veterans and the nation’s war dead. The comments sounded like things Trump had said publicly before, particularly about the late senator John McCain, yet he denied he would ever be so insensitive.

But in the hours after we learned that counselor to the president Hope Hicks had tested positive for the novel coronavirus and before we learned Trump himself had it, he offered some strange comments that seemed to lay the groundwork for how he could explain his impending diagnosis: It might have come from the military or law enforcement.

“You know, it’s very hard, when you’re with soldiers, when you’re with airmen, when you’re with Marines, and I’m with — and the police officers,” Trump said. “I’m with them so much. And when they come over here, it’s very hard to say, stay back, stay back. It’s a tough kind of a situation.” ... Trump then turned to his own test and to Hicks. “So, I just went for a test, and we’ll see what happens. I mean, who knows? But you know her very well. She’s fantastic. And she’s done a great job.”

And then he again returned to the alleged potential spreaders. ... “But it’s very, very hard when you are with people from the military or … law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you, because we really have done a good job for them,” Trump said. “And you get close, and things happen.”

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Aaron Blake
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper. Follow https://twitter.com/aaronblake