stopped speaking about the role in a way for even the saudi government get away with just that jamal khashoggi murder in a saudi consulate on al-jazeera. al-jazeera . where every. 0. hello i'm watching the news out live from london coming up in the next 60 minutes the white house says u.s. president donald trump is receiving an experimental antibody cocktail after he and the 1st lady test positive for corona virus as members of his inner circle all themselves tested president's election campaign events of despond all moved online

. also coming up on the program 6 days of fighting dozens dead but now signs of compromise on the news government says it's ready to discuss a cease fire in a going to occur. and defiant protesters continue their calls for justice over the gang rape and deaths of $2.00 women in india. welcome to the program u.s. president donald trump and his wife melania are in isolation off to testing positive for code 19 displaying mild symptoms of the virus a white house doctor said that trying received experimental antibodies and that he remains fatigued after the diagnosis how long the president's isolation is set to last all that depends on how unwell he becomes u.s. health authorities say people miss self isolate for 10 days after

a positive test and even longer if they present symptoms and even off of that trial might have to test negative twice in a row with those test on at least 24 hours apart the crucial question how is this going to affect the election campaign says all pre-announced events involving the 1st family will either be perspire owned or held online it's not clear if trump will be able to attend the next presidential debate which has been set to be held on the 15th of october and of course. says just weeks to go until americans pick a new president in an election that's been defined by a corona virus outbreak this killed more than 270000 people in the u.s. well alan fischer joins us live now from the white house and so allan that has been confusion and uncertainty but to any more information coming from the white house about the the president's condition. well certainly the update we got from the press secretary in the last was informative it told is that as you say the

president is fatigued but in good spirits we are told that he's been conducting business from the residence the building that you see behind me where he is self isolating it's interesting that he was given these experimental antibodies because they haven't yet been given regulate to be approval so it's clearly something that they're doing to see if this will help his condition and of course the president will make a decision along with his doctors if any fire 30 treatment is needed there is a big medical unit inside the building behind me so if he were to deteriorate in any significant way they could treat him here and then if things go wash the could move him to a hospital nearby ice for joe biden while he's been on the campaign trail in michigan just in the last hour he's made the point that this is not a political moment this is a moment where people should be taking a view of an american moment where people should walk together and he said this is

a reminder that everyone really should be wearing masks but there's absolutely no date when we're often told that presidential elections haven't tobar surprise this was a surprise which is completely up ended the presidential race. from the white house the chief of staff says the president is showing symptoms but walking normally i got. 5 or 6 things that he asked me to do like i do every single morning he wouldn't confirm when they knew the president was at risk after clue seed who picks tested positive we discovered that right as. the green one was taking off yesterday we actually pulled some of the people that have been traveling in close contact democratic challenger joe biden stude on the same stage as the president on tuesday he's know been tested for the virus and is negative he sent his best wishes tweet. jill and i send our thoughts to president trump and 1st lady a millennia trump for

a swift recovery we will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family before his diagnosis transformed an american t.v. show and talked about having been exposed it's a tough kind of a situation it's a terrible bank so i just want to protest and we'll see what happens i mean who knows trump has several risk factors that put him in danger of complications from covert 19 he's in his mid seventy's and overweight will have to wait for the next few days and you know for some people get really sick within hours but you know some people don't get sick until we get in so we have to really be carefully observing the situation the president has not worn a mask often including at his own rallies where many of his supporters reject the science behind the idea. his team including family members went with masks at the debate on tuesday trump even ridiculed democratic candidate joe biden for we're going to ask as recommended by virtually all public health experts i don't wear

masks like him every time you see him he's got a mask he could be speaking 200 feet away from him he shows up with the biggest mask of ever seen house speaker nancy pelosi also sent her best wishes to the president but said this was a lesson to be learned this is tragic it's very sad but it also is something that again going into crowds unmasked and all the rest the sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen it's sad that it did but nonetheless hopeful that it will be a transition to a saner approach to what this virus is all about. no there's a question over how this impacts campaigning on both sides the president is behind nationally and in certain key swing states 2 weeks in self quarantine won't help that trump joins other world leaders including brazil's president and the u.k. prime minister who can try to divide us the white house says they expect him to

make a full recovery. and of course alan this means that president trump is going to be out of action will for at least a few weeks just a month before the election itself how could that impact his campaign given particularly with his supporters as they when he were lying on his speeches in his his galvanizing presence. it complicates things in a number of ways 1st of all donald trump was running on the idea that we were rounding the bend on covert that he gave a speech just a couple of hours before his positive diagnosis saying that we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel clearly that argument has been smashed apart by what has happened to the president in the last 1218 hours or so he was talking to about how the economy was approving that becomes difficult new job figures out in the last few hours suggest that not as many jobs have been added to the american economy as many independent analysts predicted in certainly as the white house was

hoping so that makes things difficult as well getting out in a boat allows him to generate interest to generate local media coverage to generate money to his campaign which has been struggling over recent months if he can't go out and campaign he needs to spend more money on t.v. advertising they don't have that sort of money to do it in any huge scale particularly in the states where joe biden is competitive and in fact joe biden is in the lead it's also difficult for the republicans to swivel to a lot of virtual campaigning it's not something they've been doing not something they're terribly good at the democrats have been doing it for much longer with that jewel tone holes and meetings and fundraising and so it's much easier for them to do it also joe biden will no be a lot more high profile when he's on the campaign trail he doesn't have to compete against the president's voice many people said that part of hillary clinton's problem was that she was drowned by donald trump seeing things it didn't have to be anything exciting but he said things that got

a great deal of coverage 4 years ago and that led to people seeing him on the every single day so for all of those reasons this appends the election race you've got to remember when you look at the recent polls donald trump is behind 8 points nationally forget the national polls look at the state polls and then in the states with that are competitive that are swing. states he is behind in a lot of those and he really needed to start gaining ground one way to do that is to be out and about he simply won't be able to do that for the next 2 weeks and then there is the overarching question of just how ill is donald trump we know that the white house hasn't been fully transparent about health issues in the past with the president remember he went to walter reed the local hospital a short time ago that's part of the white house told is the 1st part of his medical in never took the 2nd part and there was speculation which donald trump eventually had to talk about but whether or not he'd had a mini stroke he of course denied that his doctors said that wasn't the case but it

left questions about how often the white house will be about the health of the 74 year old president one thing to point out i've been here on the white house campus many times over the last few months particularly since covered became a huge thing there are a lot more people who watch in that building behind me wearing masks today than they have been in the last 6 months thanks very much from the white house alan fischer. meanwhile democratic presidential nominee joe biden is campaigning in the swing state of michigan as you hearing allan just mention that he says that trumps infection is a reminder of how serious the pandemic is. like to start by acknowledging in which our hero you do as well so you my prayers for the health and safety of the 1st lady and president proves the united states after they tested positive for cuba 90 by way of joe and i prove that they will make a quick and full recovery this is not a matter of politics it's

a bracing reminder to all of us who have to take this virus seriously and us versions of us have been reacting to trans positive coverage $1000.00 positive diagnosis with some split on whether it's going to impact the election. i think one of his biggest sort of strategies was to make joe biden appear too weak to be president and so that he's got coronavirus that sort of takes that factor away so i think it could potentially greatly impact the election and put things more in bidets favor surprised it didn't happen much earlier. if he is not paid attention to the rules of these encourage other people not to pay attention to the rules so i hope it's a lesson i don't really think it will impact the election that much i don't think people will change their opinion because he has it now. i do worry that you know i hope he is well and he doesn't get sick very sick i think that i've already seen on fox news today that they're saying like oh well if he's 75 and he doesn't get

severely ill then maybe older people aren't as high risk as they think so i'm hoping it doesn't take the negative impact and it actually gets better so what could happen if president jiang gets too sick to perform his presidential will it could temporarily transfer power to the vice president might and some of the 25th amendment of the u.s. constitution and has tested negative for the virus but if he falls ill as well the baton is then pasta nancy pelosi the senior democrat who is speaker of the house of representatives if trump dies or is too sick to stand in the election the republican party will need to choose a new nominee but voting has already started and his name might still stay on the ballot so i'm joined now by daniel freeman former counsel and parliamentarian to the house judiciary committee and author of the house was my home a book about his career on capitol hill. can i just start by asking you can you remember another time where you've seen events like this play out just weeks before

an election no. absolutely sounded. very unusual. how do you think this is it's likely to play out in the coming weeks because obviously president trump is not going to be able to continue with campaigning we know that events have been either spun all on moved online how is that likely to to impact his position in the race given that he's already behind in the polls not just nationally but also in those crucial swing states well i'd learned a long time ago never to guess what politicians are going to do by can tell you about what the options are there are a lot of discussion about moving the election back. and that is very present in some of the press today but that's not going to happen because all of

the dates that are set for this electoral process are set by congress and it takes an act of congress to change that so the question is what are the things that can happen and when and that will govern what the results are going to be if. the president either dies or becomes incapacitated between now and then look over 30 election day. the political party his will decide the republican national committee with the democratic national committee would do the replacement this is never happened with a presidential candidate but it's happened 7 times with vice presidential candidates and there's always the question of what to do with the president does in all those ballots that people are voting early on contain his name the 2nd time frame is a candidate. becomes incapacitated or dies between the election of november

3rd and the electoral college meeting in december 14th party rules would still apply the replacement candidate would be named by the national party or they could even reconvene a party convention that's probably not very likely. the parties still control so what happens if a candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the electoral college vote which is december 14th and the you know the region on january 20th most scholars of this issue feel that the action of the electoral college those people in the state capitals who will be voting on december 14th that that is the actual election and we don't have to wait for the formal joint session of congress to.

resolve who is going to be the president if the vice president elect. he would become the president elect should the president elect. then the vice presidency would subsequently be still under the 25th amendment and so can i ask you what what can you give us a sense of what might be happening now behind the scenes because we know that with the coronavirus obviously the president now has mild symptoms but it's not about it's roughly day 10 of having the virus that symptoms can potentially become much more severe depending on on how the virus plays out within the individual now. what sort of situation we're likely to see in terms of a white house advisers being in touch with members of congress who are also getting information from the team of doctors that are providing medical treatment for the president. well this white house has not been very forthcoming with accurate information on a lot of friends and i know

a lot of people are concerned that though the american public will not get the truth about the president's condition. that being said. everybody is interested in what happens because it will affect america starting january 20th one way you deal with. it is no wonder why it's as president or vice president by inauguration day ok. actually dr freeman we're just getting some information now that present trump is going to move to a special suite at the walter reed national military medical center for the next few days as a precautionary measure so that so that suggests that he is now going to leave the white house they are moving him to the walter reed medical facility but it doesn't seem as though that is caused by any sudden change or deterioration

in president trump's medical condition it appears to be more a cautionary measure a preemptive move so that if the situation deteriorates very quickly if his condition takes a turn for the worse that he is in a place where he can receive immediate care. well certainly being at walter reed which is an extraordinary medical facility is better than being in the white house . if you were potentially going to get worse and nobody knows what's going to happen with that and we could also have the situation where the president becomes incapable of performing his duties and if he sends a notification to the congress that he is incapacitated then mike pence the vice president would become the acting president during that time of into passage and it

would be up to the president then to notify the members of congress that he was back in the saddle as they say in that he was now back being president and then mike pence would go back to being vice president but i can't i'm not a very political person but i can't imagine anybody who's managing a republican campaign whether it's for president or down to dogcatcher. is. chuffed up or how this is playing you know this is not good news for people on the republican side that the if the president's coattails are weak because the president's bill action is weak it could be a devastating landslide thank you very much appreciate your thoughts said daniel freeman thanks for joining us we cannot go to alan fischer cause he's also monitoring the situation at the white house articles we just had this news that president trump is being moved to a different facility so has he has now left the white house. he hasn't we had

a suspicion that something was going on because here at the white house they've a thing called the travel pool the travel pill covers all of the president's events and when he leaves the building they go with them and the travel pool was summoned which suggested that the president was going to move in the only reason we could think of that the moment he would be going anywhere given that we were told he was fatigued but in good spirits was to move to the hospital as i said just 10 minutes or so ago they have a very good medical facility right here at the white house if there was a deterioration or they needed somewhere where they could treat him or slightly more advanced very quickly they would take him to the walter reed memorial hospital which is about a 20 minute drive from here just standing here i'm beginning to think is that i may hear a motorcycle engine driving up. i don't think it is i think is something elsewhere but that would suggest that they were getting very close to moving the president he has of course been to walter reed in

a number of cajuns to visit veterans who come back from wars who have been injured but also a short time ago he was taken and when i'm talking months here where he went with medical notes in his hand very surprisingly on a saturday around march to go to walter reed for what we were told at that point was the 1st stage of his annual medical but he never took the 2nd stage we're now hearing in the distance we can hear there's a few signs firing up that would suggest that the president is on his way and we should have pictures of that very shortly when he gets to walter reed there will be a team that been put on standby waiting for the president he will go straight into the treatment room the doctors will take a very brief medical history that's probably already been sent over there will find out what his latest symptoms are and then they will decide along with the president and his physician here from the white house on what the next step is going to be i'm just getting a signal tell me what's happening is going to walter reed is confirmed he's no on

his way to walter reed hospital so this is developed quite significantly over the last 14 or so hours you'll remember that it was just after 1 am here in washington that we were told that the president had tested positive after being exposed to top level aides hope who had also tested positive for covert he went on fox news on thursday night to see that he had this exposure and that he was being given a test and then we got the news just after 1 am that that test had had proved positive we're now hearing helicopters i don't think for a minute that there would be taking him on marine one but that's the sign that we normally hear. over the helicopters. to escort it so that what is going to happen is that the helicopter will be in the year above the president so if there's any

problem because immediately caught him by helicopter but he is going by road we don't know if there's an ambulance here or whether he will go it is normal truck known as the the beast or he will go with an s.u.v. which of course what he did when he went to walter reed back in march. clearly this is a surprising development. given that we were told less than 0 record that he'd been treated with a combination of revolutionary new drugs which hadn't yet been given regulatory approval as well as the usual things that he would get into humans to try and help his condition but clearly in consultation with his doctors his condition is the t.v. related to such a condition such a point that the doctors have decided the best thing for him is to move from the residence of the white house to walter reed where they have instant medical expertise and some of the top best equipment the you can possibly buy right there

on top so it's surprising development and interesting how this story has developed over the past 16 hours or so it is an interesting development as you say allan because it's important to remember that president trump is going to have he will have had at the white house perhaps unlike many americans that have to think carefully about their health care coverage and how much treatment they're able to get if they suffer any 1900 times he has access to the best possible care the best possible monitoring so it is surprising that he's being moved to this facility and then also just some additional reports coming through now on the reuters news agency a source familiar with the matter saying that trump has a mild fever but that set. that's not much more information than that for now we know that he's just been moved. to the facility we're being told by the white house

this is a core as a precaution essentially. i suspect the phrase that we're going to hear a lot of over the next few hours is over the abundance of caution we were told that when he was at a fundraiser on thursday night he felt a bit tired light pole a bit of energy wasn't his usual self when interacting with the crowd at bedminster it is a state in new jersey he came back to the white house he has been self isolating since that point although mark meadows his chief of staff was saying that he had been in contact on the phone i'm getting some more information. but he's traveling by helicopter which would suggest that they want to get him to walter reed as quickly as possible so they've called in marine one and he will be taken to the hospital which of course given the advanced state of the hospital has its own hell ipad the fact that they're moving him by helicopter would suggest that this is

clearly a concern for the doctors know. if it any point they have to put him to sleep to some treatment if they have to end to beat him then at that point the 25th amendment kicks in and mike pence who's the vice president will become the acting president mike pence of course was tested for covered earlier today we are told that he does not display any symptoms that test was negative he had not been exposed to the same people that the president had been exposed to and therefore was going to continue his role. on the campaign trail but also as vice president without necessarily he would need to see the president he could took them on the phone so there wouldn't be $1.00 to $1.00 interaction and certainly that is something that they would have studiously avoided after the president's positive test so he's being taken by helicopter to walter reed hospital just a short distance away from the white house there that is

a medical team on standby i am sure the media are already camped out in front of the hospital and they will be carrying pictures as the president is taken to hospital this will be a concern to many people across america of course donald trump he divides opinion quite markedly but those who like donald trump tend to more than like him they tend to love him admire him many of them believe that he is the best president that america has ever had so this will come some shocking news but it may also come as a wakeup call to many people who are his supporters who have been very dismissive of the science their own masks even though public health experts have repeated on several occasions that this is one of the ways that they can try and cut the infection rate down i'm just seeing we're getting more information coming in let me just pop on my glasses. it's a statement from the press secretary let me just read it to you it's been handed to

me president trump remains in good spirits has mild symptoms and he's been working through the day out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of his physician medical experts the president will be walking from the presidential offices at walter reed for the next few days president trump appreciates the pouring of support for both he and the force leaders so there we are we got the phrase or the bundles of caution there is a presidential suite at walter reed it is fully equipped for any president in the way you would expect it to be with top level communications it is a secured loan and actually i mean we're just looking at shots from outside that facility now. well ok so we actually we can see the helicopter just outside the white house but as you say we're waiting for which australian to then be taken to the the walter reed facility and this after of course we've been told that he's going to be moved as a preemptive step just as a precaution should he need should he need any further medical treatment he's going

to be taken there and of course this is after his diagnosis his diagnosis for kovan 19 a little bit earlier well rested chewed joins us now an emergency physician and professor oregon health and science university joins us now from portland by skype and there are some reports suggesting that the president is suffering from a light fever this just less than 24 hours after we learned publicly of the cove in $1000.00 infection is that some want some surprising i mean what would that suggest that perhaps the virus might of you might have been infected with it prior to that. yeah certainly we don't expect to see necessarily a positive test the 1st day that you have the virus so it's possible that that we simply didn't hear about it or that his test was not positive for any number of

reasons of false negative or he didn't have a high enough viral inoculates to trigger the test but a fever is concerning and i think what else is concerning is just every time that just a rapid escalation of his symptoms we heard he was very energetic and in good spirits and then we heard he was tired and lethargic and now we're hearing about this fever and then he's moving to the hospital and then you know we did get some reassurance that it's just out of an abundance of caution but it seems like there's a trajectory to the new information we're getting about him clinically and it's more concerning every time we get more information so does that suggest that he's the virus is further along that it's taken he's had it for more than just a few days it's hard to know i mean this still could be early in mild disease and some people do manifest some cold or flu like symptoms early on but it does make us you know need to watch very carefully and continue to you know have

a high level of concern because certainly code it is a disease where the 2nd week period between 7 and 10 days you can take a rapid turn for the worse so we may anticipate that we still have a rocky road to go for his clinical course yet it's interesting because as you say it takes about a week for perhaps more serious symptoms to materialize but we only learned of the . and we only learned of the covert 19 diagnosis 24 hours ago and of course the other issue the other issue is that the president hasn't disclosed any medical records so there is right it's all we know officially about that the state of his health bought based on his age and his sex alone how long rable is he to to more serious to more severe symptoms yeah i mean we know he falls into several categories of people who tend to experience more severe

symptoms of coded and and to need hospitalization so his age his obesity has been mentioned a lot of fact that he's he's male and there seems to be a male predominant in serious disease and hospitalization and i.c.u. care and fatality and then you know and then of course he's had some mystery visits to walter reed in the past where people speculate about what might have happened and he's on a in a cluster allowing agent so we can assume that he has some corn area artery disease and so you know he has more than one the risk factor but that's across the population and how that plays out in an individual person we never know and as many people have said he still is more likely than not to do ok but as we hear of symptoms of course we worry that his factors are actually causing him to fall into a category of people who who will go on to be more ill the other possibility i want to mention is you know he's taking this experimental monoclonal antibody trying i was just going to ask you about actually i'm so sorry i just i mean i'm just

wondering because we're not about that from the white house doctor and we also learned that he remained fatigued off to the diagnosis but could this be some sort of side effect. it absolutely could and this is exactly the issue with taking an experimental drug where you have only a small number of patients to document the effectiveness and the potential side effects and this kind of product does stimulate sometimes an immune response which could include a fever and feeling fatigued or unwell or having shortness of breath so there could be some confusion about whether or not he's having a reaction to those new treatments or whether these are actually the symptoms of that so they'll be some sorting out to do one of the possible possibilities for his prognosis from here on. well i mean what we hope is that he has some symptoms that this is mild disease and he doesn't progress he will need to probably if they've

decided that he needs this level of monitoring he probably will need to stay there for a while through the period in which we would expect to see a decline if it's going to happen and and then you know time will declare either he will go down one or another and so so we just have to you just have to wait and see at this point when you say one path or another how likely is it just you know based on what we know about his we know that he's overweight that he's a b. this doesn't bode well for the way in which the virus develops you've said that there is the factor of his men tend to suffer from cova 19. much more severely than women tend to do and then also what's interesting is perhaps his his lifestyle now information about donald trump suggests that he doesn't sleep properly he doesn't exercise very well his diet isn't gray and also perhaps he has a tendency to lose his temper sometimes how does this sort of lifestyle affect

one's ability to fight the virus. you know everyone's a mixed bag of kind of risk and resilience factors so like you mentioned he has some things that some co-morbidities that put him at higher risk for progressing he also has some positive things he doesn't smoke you know he doesn't drink alcohol and also importantly he's extremely wealthy and privileged so you know he's someone who got a test early who is surrounded by physicians is going to a world class medical center who already has gotten you know an early sergi and will get early therapies of every kind even some that are not accessible to the average american there's an argument that actually sometimes v.i.p. patients can get too much but he's certainly not going to want for any type of therapy and he certainly will not experience any delay in receiving world class care and so that might offset some of his co-morbidities and his age and other

things i would other wise tree just owes him to going down a riskier path so i think he's really a balance of things that might incline him to do to doing worse and then a balance of things that might privilege him to doing well so so it's a you know it's kind of a flip of the coin as you say it's important to take into account the fact that he does have access to experts doctors and with the best medical treatment the country has to offer and that would certainly improve his prospects for fighting off the virus thank you very much dr i we can we can chat to you a bit more about this appreciate your time from now meanwhile out in fishes still following developments for us from the white house and alan we've been looking at this this shot of the outside the white house waiting to take the president trying to the walter reed medical facility as he does that is this a live shot that we have here is it lifted off.

i think it's a live show you certainly the helicopter hasn't taken off so i thought you were getting gave in some someone else as you can see the rotor blades have fired up which suggests that they're waiting for the president to get on board just to break this down for a 2nd just over what just after 1 am we were told so that is. 16 hours ago so just over 16 hours ago we were told that the president had been treated for. tested positive for covert 19 he hasn't been apart from a tweet just before that time we haven't heard from the president a tall i know he's been airlifted to a medical hospital this is a big deal he's obviously going for tests but there's obviously can say on enough about the 74 year old president that they want to get him to a secure medical hospital where they can carry out more extensive treatment and do so very quickly if the need be so although people here at the white house have been

playing it very cool and saying the president is in good spirits and he's feeling a bit fatigued this is clearly a lot more than that and there's clearly a concern that the president needs. some immediate treatment that cannot be provided in the very specialized medical unit that exists here at the white house which is why there is a helicopter waiting to take him to walter reed also interesting to that the helicopter was called we were all expecting him to go by convoy it would have taken about 20 minutes by helicopter once he gets on board it will take about 5 minutes to fly to walter reed he will be in the ward probably no more than 10 minutes after leaving here so you can see that there is some degree of urgency when you're talking about the difference between 10 and 20 minutes and then trying to concertina those together you can see just how significant important and concerning this moment is for those around the president and the. isn't himself here's another

thing to consider donald trump always like the pretty self is very strong and very fit you remember that 4 years ago he mocked hillary clinton because she had to go to hospital because she had pneumonia she was only there for a day but he made a great deal of voter on the campaign trail for him to admit that he needs help to such a degree that he has to go to hospital has to be taken there quite are generally shows that he is obviously in a great deal of discomfort and is greatly concerned about its own health that in consultation with his doctors he decided that walter reed the military hospital and the presidential unit there was a better option than self isolating here at the white house all right thank you very much allan fisher also joining us now political analyst eric can eric what are your initial thoughts in response to this news only see this comes after the president's positive diagnosis for kovan 1000 he initially had mild symptoms being

treated with a cold tail of drugs when speaking to medical professional who said that actually a fever so early on in his diagnosis could be the result of some sort of side effects just how how will people the majority of the public that the be processing and digesting this news. well when we 1st heard that the president had contracted the virus there were a lot of questions around this is the situation how would he be able to lead the government how would he be able to handle his role as commander in chief but also how would he be able to continue to campaign for reelection and i think now a lot of those questions were predicated on the president's health and how his body would be able to combat this virus and now we're getting those questions answered and clearly we're seeing a worsening of the president's conditioning and it's worsening at

a pretty rapid clip i mean we heard that the president around 1 am our time was positive with the virus and we told we were told that it was mild he was good he was in good spirits but then we were told he had a fever and now we're learning that not only was he taking an experimental drug but he was taking it at the highest dose and now we see the president is being airlifted to walter reed and as your correspondent just said it's only a 20 minute drive from the white house to want to retain the fact that they have to airlift him suggests that the situation is much worse than what the white house is letting on clearly when do you as you're going to ask eric what what we're hearing his name is. and what it would be the 1st time when it that what concerns do you have about the timing and the accuracy of the information that has been disclosed from by the white house about the president's condition. well what it sounds like

is that perhaps the president has been sicker much longer then perhaps we've even known that he is worsening at such a rapid clip but also to what are they going to do with mike pence if we go back to last november you know the president abruptly took a trip to walter reed and many of us were not made aware or why the president took that trip and we learned just recently that my pitch was told to be on standby because the president was going to go under some type of anesthesia but now we're switched saying that the president is heading over to watery and the question is are they prepared to. to somehow invoke the be the vice president or to engage him in this whole issue and so that this is this is causing more questions and now where the public need transparency as to what is that in fact is going on with the president and how in fact he's his condition is because

it sounds like it's getting much much worse so what's likely to be happening at the moment on his sleeve the priority is to lift the president to the walter reed medical facility to get him out the white house into a different setting but will that be they'll be communication between white house and lies as doc says and then when it comes to making that decision about transferring power temporarily to the vice president under the 25th amendment of the u.s. constitution now how how quickly could that be traded. well that can happen very quickly very easily but and we also know that there will be a set of offices in the walter reed medical center for the print didn't to work from so i suspect this will operate very much in the same way that it did for boris johnson when he contract with the virus that he will be working from the hospital and that he what have what he needs in the hospital to continue to govern to

continue to lead but clearly what we're seeing now is how quickly and how readily will the white house be willing and able to transfer of that power to mike pence if this if this situation suggests that it's necessary to take place. and what about the i mean obviously that there isn't much thought given to how quickly the president will be able to. get on to the campaign trail that's completely out of the question right now and realistically with just a month to go. till the election is this you know we likely to see much much more of president trump publicly at least. well we were being told earlier that much of the president's campaigning was going to move virtual again just this morning we were getting from the white house reporting that they were prepared to allow the president to work from the residence and he would simply campaign

virtually from the white house residence and now the president is moving to the hospital and so i said i suspect that this means there will there will be no campaign schedule for the president to have it at this time and so i think at this point you know much of the president's apparatus will be in disarray and again we know that this is a very crucial time for the president because he was trailing joe biden job i didn't just gave a speech from the battleground state of michigan so he clearly is continuing to operate as as the candidate seeking the highest office of the lamp but right now for the president i think the concern is just to keep him alive all right eric we'll catch up with you a bit later thanks very much just want to look at some live pictures now we're getting from the white house of course the helicopter there waiting to take president trump to the walter reed medical facility now the white house saying that

this is a precautionary measure should the president be in need of any emergency treatment but obviously there are concerns at this point about whether his condition has deteriorated where there has been a sudden change a statement from the white house said that the president remains in good spirits it described his symptoms as being mild that they also made a point of saying in that statement that the president has been working throughout the day and of course particularly emphasizing this phrase that they're doing it out of the abundance of caution and this decision to take him to the walter reed medical facility out of the white house this based on the recommendation of medical experts and the president's physician. the president says will be working from the presidential offices at walter reed for the next few days but obviously that will depend on how his condition develops or indeed if it deteriorates we get a bit more on that now with us to choose still standing by emergency

a physician presser oregon health and science university now earlier on there was a suggestion from. sources familiar with the matter that the president might have a mild fever and i know that you are saying that could be the result of a side effect of effect of the cocktail of drugs he was taking that obviously hasn't been approved by the f.d.a. for more from what you know esther of. the the president's basic stats at this point what would you say about the possibility of a prolonged hospitalization possibly possibly unconsciousness and possibly needing a ventilator. it's so hard to say right now because we've really gotten a little information and the information we've gotten has actually been confusing and sometimes in conflict with each other i mean we heard both energetic and less in the same hour i heard the end fever and then i heard that he's working all day i

mean these things don't go together and it's it's tremendously hard to paint a coherent clinical picture in my mind to to figure out where he is and its course and how his symptoms are developing or waxing or waning or if there really is a linear course to it that would indicate that he's on this trajectory to go to go worse and worse and worse so right now i would say all possibilities are still open we had a few data points including the fever and that and then the escalation to hospital care that suggests that his clinical course is changing quickly and he is needing escalation of care obviously my emergency medicine mine which always considers the worst case scenario is going to go there but you know they keep on using the word abundance of caution which suggests that in ordinary times you know where this is not the president of united states who is older and has some co-morbidities this

might be something that the average person would continue to manage at home with just a fever and symptom care i mean it you know if if you or i had a fever we would take some tylenol and ibuprofen and try to keep hydrated and see what happens and might be that you know where he not you know we direct country that that is simply what they're doing but they've decided to monitor him more carefully so i think either of those possibilities is completely on the table and i'm interested to get even just a little bit more data to try to flesh out this picture it's important to say that we as a great deal that we don't know we are being given very little information by the white house and the information that we are being given does contradict in places as well and just from your experience working in the. emergency ward he has a mild fever he has contracted the virus when he arrives at walter reed what will be the plan of action the priorities for the medical team there and in getting his treatment underway they probably at the point that he's in the hospital will you

know hook him up to the monitors be checking things like his oxygen saturation to make sure that they are able to follow his breathing very well and detect really quickly if he has any compromise in his respiratory function if they need to treat him with supplemental oxygen that will happen right away they will probably take an expanded battery of blood work blood tests it's possible that he had some of those drawn already at the white house that all we've heard of so far is the coverage test itself and once you go to the hospital there is a broad panel of laboratories you tend to follow what you're concerned about the more advanced complications of coded and then it may be a lot of you know kind of a flurry of activity and then a lot of waiting after that and only letting time go by hour after hour what we see if those clinical parameters get worse so i think it will be it will do some monitoring and potentially some boredom for the president in the country overnight

i guess because we don't know whether this really is a precautionary measure or whether this his condition has actually become was it's very difficult then to also assess the likelihood of him being admitted to an intensive care unit. it is and you know there's so many reasons for a president you know when you're when you're in that kind of role where you might feel actually pretty bad and get admitted to the hospital whereas again the average person can feel terrible from code and terrible from influenza or other diseases and we still send them home because they're stable and we know that these are diseases that make people feel rushed and so simply feeling awful it's certainly might be a reason to admit the president but it doesn't necessarily mean that he's he's unstable or that that he's not going to do well and that is kind of what this disease does so it may be that his symptoms are getting worse but that when they

check him out you know look perfectly stable so you know there could be and there could be every reason to take him and he made legitimately suffer from the virus but but it still might be ok. thank you very much esther to really appreciate your time and sharing your insight with us on this be good to talk to you a bit more later on but for now thanks very much of course you've been looking at this live shot from the white house awaiting for president donald trump to be lifted to the walter reed medical facility interesting to note that this facility is just a 20 minute drive from the white house so the fact that the president is being airlifted suggests that his condition could be deteriorating but the message from the white house is that there is no sudden change in his condition they are keen to emphasize that it is just a precautionary measure an abundance of caution they say a statement released a little bit earlier said that the president remains in good spirits and that he

has mild symptoms but what's interesting is that we're also learning with some reports suggesting as a mild fever now that coming some 24 hours after the public disclosure of the president's covert 19 diagnosis so perhaps some conflicting information there from the white house but we don't have a great deal of information we don't have much more detail than that on the precise nature of the president's condition whether it has suddenly changed and now they're suggesting that he is just being moved to the medical facility so that he can be treated he can be in a setting where he can receive perhaps more specialist treatment than he would otherwise have access to should his condition change or deteriorate in some way and of course alan fish is still with us i alan and so what do we know about the expertise and the treatment that the president trump has access to inside

the white house. while he has his own physician who sees almost every single day certainly if the president has any concerns he is a major access to him in. side the white house itself there is a much more complex medical center where they can diagnose quite a lot of things but they can also treat a lot of things that wouldn't normally you and i would need to go to hospital for they can do that here on the campus the fact that the helicopter is no waiting to take them to walter reed suggests that there is concern there they want to tap into the expertise of the doctors there that if he needs anything which is significantly more complicated that can be provided here it can be provided in an instant and they don't have to wait 2030 minutes to get a motorcade together to get a helicopter here so they can take him away so it's an indication of how serious this situation is that they want to move him to the hospital as quickly as possible

but also a sign perhaps of how ill donald trump is feeling that he's agreed to be taken by helicopter to walter reed what will be important to watch is how he gets into the helicopter it's small things like that will give us an indication of exactly how he's feeling we are told he is fatigued remember he is 74 and he's at a very busy sched job because he's been campaigning for reelection he was in bed minster in new jersey on thursday night as he attended. a fundraiser and so didn't get back to the white house till around 1 o'clock am he walks long hours and that are certainly he is a week for long hours and that that takes its toll on anyone but particularly if you're 74 and then if you add into that that you're not feeling your absolute best remember the president has also been taking the controversial drug high draw

croxley chlorine which many people have criticized as not being effective but he said he'd been taking it and he felt well he actually believed that it was keeping covered or we butt. as we know he was exposed to someone who had a positive test that someone was hoping one of his closest advisers someone is always and in around his orbit and then the president was tested after she had tested positive and that is when it was discovered that he too had covered 19 people are trying to go back to find out just how far this goes back. you remember on saturday he had a big big event here at the white house where he unveiled his pick for the supreme court the woman who is going to get the nomination of the people who attended there we know that at least 2 senior people the president of notre dame university where immy corney bought it used to go and graduated and also mike lee who is

a republican senator big fun of donald trump's both of them have in the last 24 hours confirm that the 2 have been diagnosed with covert so let me give you an idea of where that helicopter is sitting this is the white house that is the residence to my right is the west wing which also includes the oval office normally if the president is in the oval office there is a marine who stands in full dress uniform in front of the building there's been no one there throughout the course of the day because of course the president we are told has been self isolating in the residence itself this is the north lawn this looks out on to pennsylvania avenue which of course is the very famous address for the white house on the other side of the white house is the south lawn that is where the republican national convention took place a large parts of it where the speech the president gave his speech accepting the nomination of the republican party to go forward into the election on november the 3rd and that is often where the president leaves when he leaves by helicopter and

that's where that helicopter is sitting at the moment that backs on to constitution avenue and the washington monument on the mall in here which stretches of course from congress all the way through the washington monument and don't go to the lincoln memorial so that is where that helicopter is sitting at the moment at the staff there highly trained the air force officers normally the pilot is rank of colonel or higher and they will be waiting for the go ahead from the president who gives the order for them to take off and also from his doctors it will be interesting to see as well who is with the president when he makes his we to the helicopter we are being told that the 1st lady who also tested positive. only has minor symptoms and so it would be better for her health and for those who could be exposed to her she stays in the white house but given that she is the 1st lady of the president of the united states she male want me well want to accompany her

husband also a factor in that will be just how ill the president is because she may not want to leave him if there is a concern about his health the president will then be taken the 10 minutes to bethesda which just laps into maryland that is where the walter reed hospital is the campus there is a big campus but the there is a fence all around it is a secure area somewhere that secret service can easily ensure the security and safety and in that building there is a presidential suite which has state of the art communications where there can be accommodation for members of the family who want to be near the president but it means that the president can continue to keep walking if that is what he is able to do if that is what he wants to do so that is where we are at the moment and we are just waiting for that helicopter to start up its engines think i'm beginning to hear. it sounds as if

a helicopter is beginning to fire up its engines but we're not seeing that at the moment what we're seeing and what we're hearing are 2 separate things it may just be the running through some checks making sure that everything is ok before they fire up the rotors and take that short journey across the washington skyline towards bethesda and walter reed hospital. our thanks very much alan fischer at the white house it's just timing 2200 g.m.t. all watching al-jazeera live from london and we're looking at a live shot here of the white house after learning that u.s. president donald trump will be moved to a special suite at the walter reed national military medical center that's going to he's going to be there for at least a few days the white house says as a precautionary step as also a suggestion that president trump has a mild fever we know that he was taking a cocktail of experimental drugs as part of his covert $900.00 treatment it is possible that.