Ex-White House official says Trump showed ‘flagrant lack of regard for public health’ in keeping positive Covid test secret

By Devan Cole, CNN

Former President Donald Trump showed “a flagrant lack of regard for public health” and endangered White House staff by not disclosing a positive Covid-19 test he received last year, his former communications director said Wednesday.

“Full stop, this demonstrates a flagrant lack of regard for public health and for the well-being of others,” Alyssa Farah, who served for a time as the director of strategic communications and assistant to the president in the Trump White House, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”

She added: “At this time in the White House, I had staffers who were pregnant. I had one who is a multi-time cancer survivor. We had plenty of people in the West Wing who are over 65. We could have killed one of our colleagues and instead they decided to not tell anyone, putting every single one of us at risk.”

The previously unknown positive test was disclosed in a memoir by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian ahead of the book’s publication next week. According to Meadows, Trump received the positive test on September 26, 2020, three days ahead of his first presidential debate with Joe Biden. The then-President also received a negative test in that timeframe.

Farah, who was serving in the White House at the time, told Tapper that she had not been aware of the positive test detailed by Meadows.

Trump denied that positive test in a statement Wednesday, saying, “The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News. In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate.”

This story is a breaking story and will be updated.

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