al jazeera. you're watching it is our life from a headquarters in doha i'm doubting obligates out coming up in the back 60 minutes u.s. president donald trump a shift at a hospital after contracting corona virus the white house says it's out of an abundance of caution. one of the thank you everybody for the tremendous support trumps medical team says the president is having mild symptoms and has been given

an antibody cocktail his election rival joe biden would draw as negative ads about trump and urges people to wear masks. and in other news after 6 days of fighting armenia's government says it's ready to discuss a cease fire in the going to care about. thanks for joining us the u.s. president donald trump has been moved to a military medical center for treatment 24 hours after testing positive for a coronavirus or white house officials say trump will be cared for in a special suite at the walter reed medical facility for the next few days earlier trump's doctors said he was fatigued but in good spirits and was being treated with an experimental antibody cocktail it's also being reported that he has developed

a mild fever president trump posted a brief video message to twitter shortly before he was transported to hospital take a look. thank you everybody for the tremendous support i'm good you walter reed hospital i think i'm doing very well but we're going to make sure the. first lady doing very well so thank you very much appreciate it i will never forget thank you let's get an update with mike hanna he's joining us from the walter reed national medical center where trump as we've been reporting has been admitted so mike what are you hearing about the president and his condition. well at the moment 3 president touched down 5 in the walter reed medical center a short while ago in marine force one close to one of the gates of the tent i was able to watch as the president's got out and assisted walk down the steps and then got into a waiting black car and he's now being driven to the comp center of the complex

where we expect will believe all are told that he will be put in a suite that has been specially prepared for him to allow him to continue to work according to his job over the next 4 days a period that they say is just the time that he will be spending here one of the questions that we attempting to find the officer to is whether information about his condition is going to be coming from his stock or whether in fact it will be coming from the hospital authorities who are obviously in direct control of monitoring him from this particular point on which it will be from his personal physician who has accompanied him to the walter reed medical center so at this particular stage that be no statement about his condition you sold a little bit of the video message that he tweeted out show people all boarding marine one you could see he was looking somewhat tired saying that the lady his wife is being well certainly he's making it very clear that he is able to walk

he walked into marine one he walked out of marine one when it landed we do not know at this particular stage what his condition is at this moment as i said we're waiting to get more information from whatever pharmacy is going to be handing out all the tins from this point on you know my high understand that this is developing story and he's just arrived a few minutes ago but are we hearing anything at all about what happens over the next few hours perhaps the types of tests that he will be undergoing. no information whatsoever about that but here's another point that must be added we have been told. 'd the president has been put on an antibody cocktail 3 manufactured by a company called general on which as yet has no f.d.a. approval it has not being final trials chested this is an experimental drug to make that point very clear now obviously in this kind of situation he will be under

even close observation not only because of his condition from because of that virus but also because he is being treated given one does an experimental cocktail this obviously requires fos close monitoring then should be normal he is clearly going to be monitored for the impact of this experimental drug now the drug itself has been issued on what is called a particular basis that has come in its basis now obviously this drug is not available to the general public that goal has to be a special legal measure to be able to administer the drug and that is on the basis of compassion is a particular right that allows experimental drugs to be used on a compassionate basis normally to send me administered to people who may die if such an experimental drug is started minutes to whether or not this is the case

that that's going to simply not enough information to base anything on that 'd but the point i'm making that in his suite at the walter reed medical center he will be monitored not sending for the virus itself and the impact on his body but also the effect of that experimental cocktail that has the administer to him this is a basically an unscheduled unforeseen situation where you have the president suffering from the impact of the virus but at the same time being the subject of dissent. truly an experimental cocktail which we have no information yet about with anybody outside the clinical trials the final stage clinical trials. being tested at this particular point yeah a lot of questions that need to be answered my do we know when and if the media and the american public will be getting regular updates about the

president's condition. well at this stage as i said we simply do not know that and you make a very strong point that the american public obviously need to keep fully briefed about it i must mention too as well that various sources of congress say they have not been briefed on the situation as it is they would not sleep before the president was taken to hospital which is a somewhat unusual situation more than we expected at least senior members of congress to have been briefed by the white house the fact that he's in an imminent basis of going to the hospital now this is constitutional reasons as well because should the treatment require the president to be incapacitated attend such some time should he be into baby food should he be put on the ventilator then of course he is incapacitated the 25th amendment need to kick in in which 'd mike pence the vice president would take over. 1 the president while the president was in

capacitated carrying out his functions so all of these very important points and to get that to a question there has been no indication yet as to how information is going to the american public and importantly from which body the information is going to come is it going to come from the white house stop or is it going to come from the hospital administration directly preaching the president at this particular stage you will get to these questions in the coming yeah ok mike we'll let you go for now and we'll also be speaking to our guest soon on al-jazeera about that issue you raise the transfer of power a very important issue mike hanna thank you very much for the time being for giving us that update from just outside the walter reed medical center let's now cross over to alan fischer because allan is joining us from the white house so. what what are trump's timor trumps people saying about why they moved him to walter reed if

he just has a mild fever why not keep him at the white house. well it's been a remarkable year it's been a remarkable 4 years it's been a remarkable day in those remarkable 4 years. donald trump says to a very high quality medical unit right here at the white house but clearly there was some concern and we've just been remarkable 24 hours just a little and. obviously after he was diagnosed with cope with the doctors what aware of the treatment he might need to be monitoring his situation at the gate from the cold killa drugs that mike has been talking about. there is all beazley it can sound that as he displayed a low grade fever that if he needed any more argent treatment then he would not be able to get all that he needed from the medical unit here at the white house so the

decision was taken out of an abundance of caution and that is a phrase you will hear a lot over the next couple of hours that it was decided to move the president to walter reed where as there are not just top class medical facilities but a top class medical team on standby ready to do whatever was necessary it was going to be important the president made his way to the helicopter it's not unusual for presidents to make the journey to bethesda by helicopter and clearly he was fit enough to walk to the helicopter stored in to the hospital that was also a political message that was the president saying look i may have covered but i am strong and that is why he issued that twitter message as well just to reassure supporters around the country that he was feeling ok even if he does have covered it we should just go back and retrace the steps of the last 24 hours it's just over 24 hours 1 ago and that he was told that one of his closest aides hope pick who's

always in his orbit had tested positive for. covered the president then went to a fundraiser at his new jersey golf course he then traveled back he said and had given an interview to one of the t.v. channels here in the united states that he was going to have a covert test just before midnight he got the test and tweeted out it just for want to quote rather and tweeted that he tested positive that was confirmed by the white house he was then what came from the residence the building you see behind me that is the residence there that is to my left the west wing where the oval office is continued to self isolate there with the 1st lady he was in contact with senior staff by telephone because obviously pass messages to them but clearly throughout the day there was a can stand from the doctors that perhaps they needed extra backup extra precautions and that is why they took the decision to transport them to walter reed

no you've got to remember back in march the president went to walter reed it was a very hurried meeting a very hurried journey he traveled by car. there was no real explanation given for the 1st few hours and then we were told it was the 1st part of his annual medical and he would take the 2nd part really soon afterwards we never got round to that 2nd part of the medical and there was a rumor that circulated that the president had suffered a mini stroke something that he himself went public with and then dismissed what was interesting is that as he walked to the helicopter he was a mask senior staff from the white house had gone out to see him take that journey to the helicopter we're also waiting a mask not something we've seen a great deal of here over the last 6 months now allan and specifically on that point of wearing masks i mean some american media are now reporting that all staffers are now mandated to wear masks in common area like you saying this was

not implemented previously. i know that they made a recommendation that people should wear masks but it was really being left to their or in. national stand some whether or not they would wear a mask some dates some didn't but certainly today we've seen a lot more wearing masks i think it's also important to talk about joe biden he shared the debate stage with donald trump on tuesday there was a can sound for him not least because the biden campaign only find out about the president's positive test when it was released to the media after 1 o'clock in the morning here on friday joe biden testified he said 2 tests on friday he is testing negative he has been back on the campaign trail he made the point that this is not the time to score political points it was much more important that this was treated as a nonpartisan issue and he sent his best wishes forced of all in a tweet to donald trump and then when he was at the campaign rally he will continue

to campaign what we've been told is that the biden campaign also pulling all negative ads off the airwaves here in the united states while the president is in hospital there making sure that the only ads the run are those that boost joe biden not those which attack donald trump. all right allan thank you very much we'll leave you for the time being allan reporting from just outside the white house now let's take a closer look at the president's health and trampas 74 years old and he is considered overweight both make him high risk for the coronavirus questions were raised about his condition back in june when he appeared to have difficulty drinking water and coming down from the stage at an event but he dismissed concerns about his health at the time and in the last year trump made an unscheduled visit to the doctor for a test something that's usually noted in his public diary the white house said he

was in good health and during his campaign in 2016 trump produced a note saying he'd be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency a doctor later said trump had written the letter and self that's been to dr amish he's a senior scholar johns hopkins center for health security he's joining us from pittsburgh thanks for your time just weigh in on what's happened over the last couple of hours i think this is an unfortunate turn of events but it is something that we predicted would likely happen on this virus does not respect borders it doesn't respect whether or not you are a world leader and the testing policies at the white house were never going to be enough because we've seen costers of cases at the white house even before this current culture that's happened the president is somebody that is at high risk for severe complications so it's not surprising that he did experimental therapy as well as been hospitalized preemptively but why do you think the situation has

changed quite quickly in the sense that the white house announced that he had said he had mild symptoms and now he's being needed to transfer to the hospital in fact he's now arrived at walter reed. it's not surprising that a 74 year old would have an acceleration of symptoms that would prompt hospitalization especially when you have the access to health care that the president does so if you are having a fever if you're starting to feel more fatigued there is going to be people that you're on the side of caution and hospitalized and individual if they have that option so that's likely what set play here and any time a 74 year old has code that we have to have a low threshold for using hospital resources. or raising the point of the experimental treatment just a moments ago so the president's a physician has said that trump received a dose of an experimental antibody cough tale that's in clinical trials hasn't been authorized yet what does this all say to you and what do you know about this drug. well the drug is a it's

a cocktail of antibodies made by the company regenerative and we've seen some very promising data that this may be something that helps individuals not have a severe course of illness and they've been using it in out patients in a clinical trial so to me it's something that i think was a little bit quick a quick thing to grab off of the shelf to help the president because it was something that had some data and it was available on compassionate use we don't know exactly how well this is going to work we're still doing clinical trials and it's important for those clinical trials to continue but it's not surprising to me again that you see the president get this type of therapy because they are thinking about using this more broadly if clinical trial support it to keep people out of the hospital so would you say that there is enough information about the struggle for it still in clinical trials. no we don't have full information about this however it was it was a vailable on compassionate release we're doing the trial right now i think we'll get more data the data that we have so far is promising obviously this is something that the president had to consent to have we give somebody a drug on compassionate use they have to go through

a consent process to know what the benefit is what the risk might be and where the data actually lies but we do give compassionate use drugs to people occasionally in situations like this and again because it is the president i think that there were no no nothing was off the table their physician also said that the president has been given vitamin d. and zinc amongst other vitamins what else could he be receiving well once he gets into the hospital we'll see if he gets the drugs like severe which is an anti-viral that's available on emergency use authorization it does not appear that he's sick enough to require a drug like dex or methadone we usually reserve that to people who are requiring supplemental oxygen and a videos of the president do not show him showing any signs of shortness of breath or needing supplemental oxygen what are the long term paths of recovering when you look at the broader picture and someone in the president's age group and someone who has has sort of health characteristics it's hard to say because some people in

that age group do recover pretty quickly but there are some that have lingering symptoms and take some time to get back to their full level of activities it all depends upon what happens in the next week or so to see how severe the symptoms get for the president and if any of the therapies have an effect but i do think that there is going to be a recovery period it's going to probably be at least a week or 2 that you will see him be unable to really return to a same level of activity but hopefully we won't see any kind of severe complications or requiring an i.c.u. for example or anything like that dr m.s. we thank you for speaking to us on our genes there are good to get your thoughts thank you. now the democratic presidential nominee joe biden is campaigning in the swing state of michigan and he says that trump's infection is a reminder of how serious the pandemic is. like you stuart knology which i'm sure all you do is we'll show you my prayers for the health and safety of the 1st lady

president. actually they tested positive for cool that night. i waved you and i prayed to make a quick recovery this is not politics it's a bracey reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously so what could happen if trump gets to 6 or perform his presidential duties while he could temporarily transfer power to the vice president mike pence under the 25th amendment of the u.s. constitution pen's has tested and they get it for the virus but if he falls ill as well then the baton is passed to nancy pelosi is the senior democrat and she's also speaker of the house of representatives well if trump dies or is too sick to stand in the election the republican party will then need to choose a new nominee but early voting has already started and his name might still stay on the ballots let's talk about this with matthew dickinson he's a professor of political science at middlebury college he's also he also wrote the

book better harvest f.d.r. presidential power and the growth of the presidential branches joining us from a firm on thanks for your time with us on al jazeera so obviously the health of the president is most important right now but there are procedures in place of the president gets saying the 25th amendment would kick in what does it say about transfer of power the president is unable to lead. well the 1st option is for the president himself to recognize that he's incapacitated informally transfer the power to the vice president if he cannot do that the vice president with the support of the cabinet can make that decision for him it has been invoked 3 times before voluntarily by presidents ronald reagan when he had minor surgery and the same with george w. bush who had a colonoscopy and went under anesthesia twice so there is precedent there although those precedents are not exactly the same as what we're experiencing here but there is a protocol in place for a transfer of power a temporary basis should the situation warrant what about an involuntary transfer

of power i mean the 25th amendment that you outline is a voluntary transfer of power what happens if it's involuntary willed it depends on the state of the involuntary nature so if the president simply cannot make the decision himself the vice president with the consultation of the cabinet it would do that if there is some sense firm and some advice apologies what determines if the president can make that decision himself or not it's a judgment call of those 'd who are involved i mean what it basically comes down to if the president cannot give his assent may he is in such a physical state that he's incapable of signaling a transfer of power than a decision is made for him. and how important is it at this point for the white house to communicate to the public to the american public that there are processes and plans in place and they really need to be playing it straight for the american

public don't they. transparency is key here but on the other hand the vice president at this point does not want to alarm the country by. seeming to signal that there may be a possibility that he'll be incapacitated so i don't see the white house leaning in that direction or all 'd if anything i think the emphasis on the white house is going to be on stressing and showing visible evidence that the president is in charge that he's carrying out the duties of his office. the worry here and we've seen this in previous crisis is that the concern for continuity and to show that the president is in charge may lead some of those 'd around the president to. under play the severity of a health crisis we saw this for instance when ronald reagan was shot early in his presidency. there was an effort made by his staff to. send a message that he was doing well he was in charge when we now know he was near

death much closer to death and this is a natural tendency for those surrounding the president is there to downplay the severity of illnesses in order to provide this reassurance to the public that the president is in charge so is that a situation that you think will unfold with president trump is there a risk air there was always a risk this is where you you need the white house to be as transparent as possible and if you're a journalist here that in the motto is don't trust verify as much as possible you don't want to rely on what the white house is telling you is happening you want to see it so i expect as much as they can the white house will show. scenes of the president actually working in walter reed taking calls meeting as much as he can with aides anything that will signal that he is in fact in charge as the president's health consider national security matter in your opinion. well you

know it's national security in this sense one is you want to send not only a domestic signal and there's obviously political implications here in terms of the election which we can talk about but you need to send a message abroad as well to other governors governments that the united states the continuity of government is in place if necessary but for now president and trump is in charge all right i'm afraid we've run out of time but we thank you very much for giving us your analysis on al-jazeera thanks for that so i'm thank you now u.s. voters are split on whether trump's positive diagnosis will actually impact the election listen. i think it's probably going to be very negative for trump if he's not able to attend any in person rallies or if he gets really sick he's obviously not going to necessarily be able to continue campaigning to his full capability and 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 front of virus that sort of takes that factor

away so i think it could potentially greatly impact the election and put things more in biden's favor surprised it didn't happen much earlier. if he is not paid attention to the rules of his 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 trumps infection marks a devastating blow to his reelection bid us health authorities say people must self isolate for 10 days after a positive test that brings us up to october the 11th but before that in 5 days

vice president mike pence a set to debate his democratic rival tamala harris while pence's tested negative it's unclear whether he'll also have to self isolates if president trying to develop symptoms that could get in the way of the 2nd presidential debate in 13 days on his 3rd faceoff with joe biden a week later on october 22nd we are scores just 32 days out from the big day that election on november the 3rd derek plummer's a democratic strategist he explains how trump's diagnosis will drastically change the dynamic of this election campaign. what we will see over the course of the next 30 i guess $190.00 days is that you know this is going to bring the issue of the pandemic and health care to the forefront of american voters one of these that we've seen over the last couple weeks is that the charm campaign has tried to as much as they could to pivot away from talking about health care talking about it

and right now the campaigner in chief has and so people are thinking about that and as was reported earlier that's going to change the dynamic in terms of how chuck is going to be able to get out his message certainly when world leaders have gotten sick we've seen poll numbers change so for instance when boris johnson earlier this year tracked it we saw i think 17 percent bump in his approval rating i don't really see that without some because he hasn't really talked about it in a way that is that nonchalant he's trying to downplay the actual significance of it now wearing a mask setter and so i don't think he can really expect too much in that way as i think which i'm seeing the biden campaign is the really focus on the issues that matter most of the pain to americans making sure they are talking about why every american doesn't have the ability to have the type of access to health care that we see from elected officials like president tom. still ahead on al-jazeera why

critics say the french president's plans to strengthen secularism will end up stigmatizing muslims 2 years since saudi journalist was killed in istanbul human rights activists keep up their demands for justice. but. still no sign of any clout and right across western parts of the u.s. we have got some cloud pushing into western canada just easing over towards british columbia basin places a cat out of the central areas of canada sliding down across the prairie mountain states pushing down across the northern plains we'll see some wetter weather as we go through the next dial so the cold air digging out of kind of single figures that for minneapolis but ahead of that not too bad temperatures into the upper teens and

behind well so the temperatures here to denver to around 20 degrees celsius will see these temperatures funny thing just picking up with a southerly push on those winds as we go on through sunday what's the weather around the lakes pushing over towards northern parts of the appalachians mid atlantic states could see some wet weather but as i said still no sign of any right across the western side of the u.s. some of fright now we got some very heavy right in the forecast across western parts of the caribbean little cloud just been talking about this for the last couple of days and that slightly to develop into a tropical depression if not a tropical storm that will run its way up towards the yucatan peninsula heavy rain there for billie's for honduras for quite tamala said seeing the possibility of some flooding it pushes a little further north and west with through sunday elsewhere sunshine and showers . the. current tensions between countries along the river nile have their roots in the

colonial past from economic point of view and i think non-agreement political victory for the new political realities on the.