a source tells nbc news hicks tested negative on wednesday morning, we're told she began showing minor symptoms wednesday evening and was quarantined on air force one on the way back from the rally in minnesota. her positive test came back yesterday morning. here is the president on fox news discussing hicks just hours before announcing his own diagnoses. >> she tested positive. a hard worker. a lot of masks. she wears masks a lot. but she tested positive. and i just went out with a test. and the first lady just went out with a test also. but it's very, very hard when you are with people from the military or for 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. you get close and things happen. i was surprised to hear with hope but she's a very warm

person with them. she knows there's a risk, but she's young. >> obviously significant breaking news, the beginning of october for so many different reasons. the functioning of america's government, the political campaign that we've all been following as a nation now for so long, and obviously, the personal story here. the president's well being, the first lady's well being, hope hicks' well being and health and all those that they may have been in contact with who could be infected by this too. obviously our thoughts and prayers are with them. willie, this is how the newspapers are handling this news. "new york post," president has covid. "the daily news" infected. with a picture of the president

and first lady. "the los angeles times" this morning trump tests positive for coronavirus. the minnesota star tribune, trump has virus. san francisco chronical, trump says he has the virus. and "the sun," trump tests positive for coronavirus. obviously, willie, newspapers across the world -- here's a picture of the president with the prime minister of britain, who also has had the coronavirus, and had a very difficult fight with it. "the new york times," trump tests positive for covid-19 and the world shudders. obviously the impact of a united states president having a disease that has killed over 200,000 in this country and a million worldwide. obviously is going to cause the markets to shudder, cause our allies to shudder and as "the

new york times" said will cause the world to shudder. >> our thoughts and our prayers and hearts are with the trump family right now, hope hicks and anyone in the white house because we don't know how far this ripples out yet. there will be tests, obviously, across the white house to see if anyone else has this, because as you said the president held his rally, hope hicks had to be quarantined on the way home yesterday, he was at a debate with joe biden, obviously they were far apart on tuesday night. kayleigh mcenany was with hope hicks this week, she gave a briefing without a mask on in that room. when you stop and look at all the people coming into contact with the source, including by the way, supreme court nominee, amy coney barrett, she's been shepparded around to meet with senators ahead of her confirmation hearing.

this is as serious as it gets when you know that donald trump is a 74-year-old man, more than 80% of the deaths have come from people 65 and older. we're sending our best to the president. this will put the campaign on hold for a couple of weeks. we'll see how joe biden responds in a while. but this is a time for being sober, for being serious and assess how the president does and where the country goes from here, joe. >> and as you said, the president is in his 70s. his doctors have all said he's incredibly strong and so perhaps it will not impact him the way it impacts many senior citizens. we have, of course, the governors of both missouri and virginia, who are senior citizens who have tested positive, along with their wives, for this disease and have both recovered with minimal

complications. so certainly, we hope that's the case. i will say, though, as you started talking, willie, about all the people who have been in contact with this president and with the president's staff and you talked about the press secretary, who was in contact with members of the press yesterday -- >> chief of staff. >> -- a lot of heated back and forth. and the chief of staff. and you talk about the supreme court nominee who, obviously, has been in contact with those white house staff members and been in contact with senators on the hill. i have a feeling that there is a very intense contact tracing regime going on right now. because obviously this could impact not just the white house but all branchs of this government. for more details on the specifics, the time line, trying to get our arms around this news

that broke at about 1:00 a.m., early this morning. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. let's just start with a timeline. let's talk about hope hicks, the first person we know in this room that was infected with covid. talk about her contact with the president and the team on tuesday and wednesday. >> certainly, hope hicks is one of the president's closest aides, there during the white house for a while, left, and then returned. she was one of the last staffers in the room with donald trump, one that he relies on heavily for advice and council. and she's in close counsel with the president. she was part of the traveling party tuesday night to cleveland, ohio for the president's debate against joe biden. she was also part of the trip on

wednesday when he went to minnesota for a couple of events including a rally. here's where the chronology is important. everyone in the white house who has contact with the president, that includes members of the press, are given that abbott, the rapid test, which you have results in about a half hour or so. everyone on tuesday was tested, both trump and biden were tested before the debate that night. hope hicks was tested wednesday morning and the test came back negative ahead of the trip to minnesota. it was while she was on the trip she started to feel sick, display symptoms. she isolated on air force one on the way back to washington, she then tested positivpositive. she was in marine force one on wednesday -- >> who else was on that? >> she was just a few feet away from the president. >> jonathan, i know we have a

delay. jonathan, i know we have a delay. but first of all, wednesday morning when she was on that trip -- first of all, i must say, these abbott tests that the white house personnel have been taking, there's a picture of the president and it looks like hope hicks wearing a mask inside the helicopter. here -- but the tests -- the abbott tests, at least reports over the past several months, not the most accurate of tests, but they took the abbott tests on tuesday, she tested negative wednesday. she was on that helicopter. who else was on the helicopter with the president? >> kayleigh mcenany, the press secretary, other senior staffers were on the helicopter as well. it is protocol on the helicopter staffers wear masks but on air force one they don't. in the president's quarters, his office, near the front of the plane, it is like the west wing

where it's a small office space, staffers are within a few feet of each other, and that includes the president where staffers are coming in and out. you're right about the abbott test, it's not 100% accurate, that's what everyone is given to create this sense of protection for the president. she tested positive, isolated on the flight home wednesday night from minnesota. she was showing symptoms, came back on the plane, was isolated. thursday morning, tested positive. her test results were known. thursday morning, white house staff news hope hicks had tested positive and had been in close contact with the president of the united states. yesterday thursday afternoon, the president still travelled to bedminister, new jersey for an inperson fund-raiser where he mingled with hundreds and dozens of supporters. so the white house knew that

hope hicks tested positive and the president had been in close contact with her, yet he proceeded to travel for his fund-raiser. last night he and the first lady were tested first with the abbott test and then with the more accurate test. it was in the interim between his interview with sean hannity and when he announced he tested positive they got the results. that raises questions about government right now and completely upends this company and throws aside the president's message all along, that the virus was on its way out. just yesterday the president said we turned the corner as a nation against the virus. and that it was about to be defeated and yet hours later he himself came backing with a positive result. >> as you said, thursday morning he knew he had been in close contact with somebody who tested positive, he still went to his fund-raiser thursday afternoon.

so obviously, anybody that was at that thursday fund-raiser with the president will obviously need to be tested, and any people they've been in contact with since that fund-raiser on thursday, obviously will need to be tested too. again, we don't know who the supreme court nominee has been in contact with over the past few days regarding white house staff, but obviously she will be -- need to be tested too. i think we may have quite a few government officials, i don't know if she would be one of them, who are going to need to quarantine for the next 14 days. >> yeah. >> mika, a few things. we showed a picture of hope hicks on the helicopter wearing a mask. that i'm told is from september the 14th. we haven't seen any images of hope hicks on the helicopter from a few days ago when she was

on the helicopter when she likely had covid. but again, a lot of interaction between hope hicks, the president, members of the staff over the last few days. so this may be a white house in lockdown for the next few weeks. >> i would think so. i think it's worth backing up a little bit more even because we have a slew of doctors and experts that we're going to be talking to this morning about the process to contact trace, to try to figure out the source here. it may not be hope hicks. who got it first between donald and his wife melania, where they got it is still potentially a question. and this virus, how it plays out in each person is very different. some people have no symptoms at all. we'll be having a doctor on this morning who had covid who did just fine and he's in his 60s. so many questions here. the one thing we do know is that hope hicks tested positive and

now the president and his wife has as well. so many questions, not just about how this began but who else in the administration could have potentially been exposed. >> when you look at the ripple effects and you wonder who else could be exposed, you see jared kushner walking closely to hope hicks wednesday, getting on air force one. that means ivanka trump, of course, as well. dan can sereno is in that image, steven miller the adviser is there as well. when you ask about further ripple effects, the white house chief of staff, mark meadows has spent a lot of time with amy coney barrett, taking her to her meetings around capitol hill, meadows was huddled with mitch mcconnell, now he's been exposed there to the majority leader. as you look at the chart it goes out toward the horizon. and the contact tracing is going

to be extensive and complicated. let's talk to dr. vin gupta, pulmonologist. and also with us "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dave campbell. dr. gupta, i want to ask what your concerns are for the president this morning. >> good morning, willie, good morning everybody. you know, as has been said, this is a serious virus, and the president especially is an individual who is at elevated risk of a bado outcome, one because of his age and two because he has metabolic syndrome, he's over weight and has other potential comorbidi comorbidities because of that. i see that as a double whammy. it sounds like he has an army of doctors around him, they will be

individual len vigila vigilant, we're praying he stays asymptomatic. but they're going to be looking for your viewers out there, something called his oxygen level, use something called a pulse oximeter. they're going to be looking at early signs if the president is doing okay. is that oxygen level going down, is he having difficulty breathing, mounting a fever, having chills, those symptoms would trigger him probably to go to walter reed to get additional care. >> i'm thinking about boris johnson who contracted coronavirus at first wanted to project strength was going out making appearances while he had coronavirus. he denounced it, wanted to show the country he was okay. and then it got worse. in fact, he was transferred to the icu, there was a transfer of power in the country. so what does the timeline look like from president trump

learning he has coronavirus to the end of this thing? >> willie, every patient is different. and the president's case, because again he's older and has some risk factors for a bad pneumonia from covid-19, again, this is just -- this is anecdotal, this is my experiences, what i have seen, my colleagues have shared with me. you can have a few days where you had the initial positive test to the onset of symptoms up to a week, up to ten days. it really varies here. but vigilance here is key. he needs to shut it down for his own sake, the sake of his inner circle and everybody as you were mentioning, the real big question here is, when did this -- if hope hicks was the instant case, when was she first infectious, not even symptomatic. it sounds like she was symptomatic on wednesday morning opinion she could be

presymptomatic tuesday evening during the debate. we know young people can shed the virus and be infectious to others when they're presymptomatic. so it's critical that vice president biden's team are doing tracing. and everyone with a negative test that the cdc says is a high risk exposure, you should be quarantining for 10 to 14 days, even if they have a negative test. that's vital to keep in mind. >> obviously joe biden was on stage for 90 minutes with the president. the president's performance obviously was -- received a lot of attention because he was so animated. chances are very good that the vice president this morning and all those around the vice president will need to be tested and under go contact tracing. you talk about 6 feet, but there

have been a lot of medical studies that show actually aerosol goes beyond six feet and if you're with the president of the united states, very animated on tuesday night, as well as chris wallace, though he seems to be further away. obviously it's something that joe biden and his entire campaign need to be concerned about. i want jonathan lemire to put up the list of names that hope hicks was in close contact with that we know of. and talk about how this impacts the entire government. we'll remember, at the very beginning of our knowledge of covid when see pack had a guest, a lot of people including mark meadows, not then chief of staff, had to lockdown for 14 days for their safety and their loved ones and others.

but you have melania trump, jim jordan, alice johnson, robert o'brien, rudy giuliani, mark meadows, eiffivanka trump, dona trump jr., eric, laura, tiffany trump, derek lyons, bill stepien, jason miller, kayleigh mcenany, we can look at mark meadows and the amount of time he's spent around supreme court nominee, amy coney barrett. and as you said, as others said, mitch mcconnell, the other senators. this actually is a threat, not just to this president, not just to this white house, but actually, to the united states government right now. we don't know how widespread this is and that is, of course,

one of the problems. and, of course, if these meetings were held outside, that would be one thing. but most of these meetings were held in close quarters, inside of offices -- >> it's the traveling too. >> yes, it's also the traveling. but you look at mark meadows and his connection with the supreme court nominee and those connections that he had on the hill with mitch mcconnell, other senators, obviously this is concerning on so many different levels. >> joe, the number of people that hope hicks has come into contact with, it's the senior leadership in the west wing and the president's campaign. and the tentacles ripple out from there. mark meadows has been on capitol hill repeatedly for not just amy coney barrett and her introduction to senators ahead of her hearings, one now wonders if those will be postponed, but also for covid relief negotiations. you mentioned members of the

family, donald trump jr., eric, and so on, they were at the debate tuesday night. the moment they walked into the debate hall wearing masks and defiantly sat there in the audience for the rest of the debate not wearing masks, despite guidelines to do so and being approached by a cleveland clinic doctor and urnlged to pu one on. the contact tracing is under way but the question is how thorough have they been. when other staffers came down with it we heard it was days before they talked to anyone. reporters who travelled on air force one wednesday night, after hope hicks was exhibiting symptoms and they would have been in contact with not just her directly but others who twee around her, none of them have been contacted for contact

tracing. so they have a long way to go sp it shows how overwhelming that task will be here on the days and weeks. the president was supposed to, today, have a fund-raiser here in washington and then travel to florida tonight for a rally. those events have been cancelled. he was supposed to be in wisconsin tomorrow and have an aggressive run of campaign events, rallies, et cetera, next week, including a west coast swing, those now almost certainly to be cancelled. he'll likely be sidelined for at least ten days, if not longer. and that's if he doesn't get sick, show symptoms. it throws the last month or so of the election in chaos. will there be two more debates? hard to say at this moment? perhaps not. will there be any semblance of campaign events or rallies from either side the rest of the way. this is a president who has spent nearly a year downplaying the threat of the virus, at

least publicly, and yet he of course is now sidelined from it. the one event that is still on his schedule today is a phone call, what the white house is describing, with covid-19 vulnerable seniors. the president himself now, of course, is one of those people. >> and, of course, we also, meek -- mika, we're talking about the campaign but again it's very important for everyone that has been exposed, especially when you're talking about the supreme court nominee, the president trump supreme court nominee, has she been exposed, has mitch mcconnell been exposed? it sounds like they likely have and if that's the case, that's something that obviously pushes any hearings -- >> that's right. >> -- back at least two weeks, at least three weeks. the president obviously telling us from the debate stage on tuesday night he wants to expedite her nomination as quickly as possible because he

wants her vote on any challenge that he has to the outcome of election results. again, with -- if you do the contact tracing, it seems that that is unlikely to happen over the next few weeks, at least until everybody is cleared. >> we'll see how they play it out. here's how this was reported in "the new york times." the president's result game after he spent months playing down the severity of the outbreak that has killed 207,000 in the united states and hours after insisting that the end of the pandemic is in sight. mr. trump will quarantine in the white house for an unspecified period of time, forcing him to withdraw at least defrp temporarily from the campaign trail, 32 days from the election on november 3rd. >> this is the times continues.

>> even if mr. trump remains asymptomatic he will lose much of his time on the campaign trail. if he becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all. the times reports aides were still in a state of shock as they absorbed the news and no word on how far the infection could have spread among senior white house officials who do not wear masks in deference to the president's disdain for them. >> obviously these aides for the united states are in shock as is the nation, the world. their first concerns, though, this morning i'm sure will be to make sure that they're healthy, to make sure that they're not passing anything along to their family members, to their loved ones, parents, grandparents,

seniors and everyone else. as we said, anyone inside the white house or had contact with the white house, and certainly for those people that were at the president's fund-raiser in bedminister yesterday after, after the president knew he had been in contact with hope hicks and she had tested positive, you also wonder, jonathan, do you know who travelled with the president to new jersey after he knew that he had been in contact with hope hicks and that she had tested positive? what aides went with him to that new jersey fund-raiser? >> joe, that's an important moment because it raised eyebrows at the time that he travelled with, this is before we knew anything about hope hicks, he travelled with a smaller party than usual yesterday to new jersey. and kayleigh mcenany who we were told was slated to travel with him did not instead one of the deputy press secretaries did. kayleigh mcenany was, we have

now learned, notified of hope hicks' positive diagnoses yesterday and later in the day still held a briefing with white house reporters, and, of course, she was not wearing a mask. >> good lord. are you kidding me? >> wait. >> hold on. >> stop right there. >> she was notified before -- >> so she knew -- she knew before that press conference where she didn't wear a mask, in front of all of those reporters and had heated exchanges -- >> screaming about the river. >> with fox news reporters, she knew that she had been exposed to this disease? >> and that the president has been exposed? >> and went out and still had a press conference in front of members of the press? >> that's correct, joe. she still took the podium in the white house briefing room. >> jonathan? >> yes, she took to the podium in the white house briefing room and spoke to reporters after

learning that hope hicks had not been feeling well, after learning that hope hicks tested positive. the president himself did not interact with reporters which was noteworthy. there's rare these days. no report es had contact with him other than waving at a distance headed to the helicopter headed to his new jersey fund-raiser. another key person in this, if the person were to be sick, is vice president pence. he did not travel with the president the last two days. he's had his own travel schedule, he was not in washington wednesday or thursday, he was on the campaign trail but he was seen tuesday ahead of the debate headed to the white house residence presumably to wish the president good luck. so on tuesday we believe there was contact between the president and vice president. someone else, of course, whose health we'll be watching closely in the next few days. >> obviously the health of the

vice president extraordinarily important right now as we wait as this terrible news story plays outsi plays itself out. dr. dave campbell, i want to ask you, first of all, how dangerous it is for the president to have gone to a fund-raiser in new jersey yesterday afternoon even after knowing he had been exposed and then in close quarters with someone with the coronavirus. and the same with the press secretary who went out knowing that she had been exposed to someone who had covid and had been in close quarters. but before i do that, i want to ask you personally, as someone who has had covid, just to put a human face to this, that you're over 60. you eve had -- you've had covid and it's not, obviously we know

this, it ends up being a bad result in a smaller percentage of the population. but you're a good example of someone over 60 who has had covid who had relatively minor symptoms. tell us about that first. >> i will. and joe, thank you for not also saying that i'm a little overweig overweight, which i am. >> thank you for telling me. >> of course, the president has on me a few more pounds. when i was with covid-19, i was barely symptomatic, minimally symptomatic. i thought i had maybe some allergie allergies, it was back when the sahara dust storms were coming over the united states. i had been routinely testing myself to stay ahead of that and the test came back positive. i quarantined for two weeks, never developed any of the shortness of breath, cough or fever.

and as time went on, i recovered without incident. tested negative several times afterwards, according to cdc guidelines and policies and recommendations and was able to return to work after a few weeks. i am gravely concerned, to answer your first question, about the cavalier and reckless behavior we'll see coming out of a white house outbreak because the cdc itself has long since explained that the risk of exposure through droplets and aerosols and speech and yelling and coughing and sneezing and closed indoor spaces, which includes airplanes, is higher. so we all should be on heightened alert for the next two to 14 days to see, first, who else tests positive. second, whether senior people in the white house or the president himself become sick. and third, more examples of this

cavalier and reckless behavior with no face masks from people who know they have been exposed to someone who had the virus, who was tested positive, joe. >> dr. campbell stay with us. i want to bring in capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early," kasie hunt. we're looking at the ripple effects of this, we know mark meadows has been taking amy coney barrett around capitol hill, and she's met with people like mitch mcconnell. we know chief of staff meadows has been working separately with leaders on capitol hill on a covid relief package. what has been the reaction overnight and early this morning about the news with the president? >> everybody is stunned willie. and a little bit shocked into silence. i've been working the phones trying to reach out to as many

of my sources as possible. and so far everyone is being careful -- in a couple cases i woke people up and they were shocked to see 2020 take this additional turn. i think the focus on the ripple effects throughout the u.s. government is one that has, certainly a lot of my sources on the hill, incredibly concerned. and joe's concern about the future of the supreme court hearings is an interesting one and certainly one we're going to be asking about here in the coming weeks. the capitol has been a much different place over the course of the last few months, the hallways are not packed the way they were, they are trying to impose social distance. in the senate mask wearing is basically universal with the exception of rand paul. and there are things that are in place to try to keep people safe, but that doesn't mean that it's a no-risk zone. and you know, you've seen the

photos of the course of the last couple of days of amy coney barrett standing across from a number of republican members of congress -- of the senate, probably a full third of them at this point. i have to go back and count exactly, but considering she has been in contact with all of these white house officials, that puts a lot of these members of congress at very serious potential risk. and they also, many of them, have preexisting conditions, particularly many of them are older. mitch mcconnell certainly in that category of having higher risk for that reason. people like dianne feinstein, the oldest member of the senate and is the ranking member on the judiciary committee so would be a big part of these hearings. i tried to get in touch with the chairman of the committee, lindsey graham, he doesn't typically get up at this hour of the day. we'll see what point we hear from him. but this is something that

concerns everyone on a human level. amy coney barrett has a special needs child at home. this is a very scary thing. but then, you know, from a national security and governance perspective, it's also a very serious one. jonathan lemire talked about where mike pence has been, whether he has been in contact. we're asking questions about the house speaker, nancy pelosi she obviously has been in private meetings with steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, although yesterday those meetings took place over the phone instead of in person. so i think there are going to be a lot of questions unfolding about when the white house knew this was going on and who they put at risk after they were aware of it. >> thank you so much kasie hunt. we greatly appreciate you being with us. kasie talked about members of the senate wearing masks and that many had worn masks.

i am curious, though, about mark meadows, remember mocking i believe it was jake sherman saying he looked funny wearing a mask. >> yeah. >> i am curious as to whether mark meadows was wearing masks or still mocking people for w r wearing masks as he was taking the possible future supreme court justice around to members of congress. you know, i've been in a good number of those meetings and i've heard in many meetings on the hill that certainly the age of covid, while they wear masks publicly, a lot of times when they get behind closed doors they take the masks off just so they have a better read on the people they're speaking with. so very curious to see again whether mark meadows was wearing a mask while he was taking judge

ber barret around. >> i want to go to dr. vin gu a gupta. first of all, dr. gupta, is it possible that hope hicks was not the person who passed it along to the president, and what are the guidelines when you are exposed to someone who tests positive? >> we know the president went to the fund-raiser. we know the president blew threw potential guidelines going to the fund raise erand other-rais. and we know the president has a pattern of blowing through rules, especially cdc guidelines or health guidelines to keep people safe. what should be happening when a person is exposed? >> you bet, mika. that's a vital question here. and a critical input here is, how symptomatic is hope hicks right now? is she okay?

she's young and we're hearing she's symptomatic. what does that mean? why that matters, mika. the more symptomatic one is, we think the more infectious they are to others around them. so a vital piece of this is when was she first demonstrating symptoms and then maybe we can trace back. to your question, was she the incident case, was it somebody at a rally that may have exposed her, who knows. but they need to go back and assume she was not the incident case and have that be proven wrong. so they cannot make any assumptions here. i'm concerned because exposure to hope hicks to the president is a high risk exposure and everybody subsequently exposed to hope hicks on air force one is a high risk exposure because we're hearing she's symptomatic. so it's key for not only all of them in the inner circle to understand what's happening and make sure they do the full 14 days, that's the guidelines on

their own cdc website, the guidelines is if you have a high risk exposure, even if you have a negative covid test, you sit out for the 14 days. i hope they do that because the american people are watching. and now more than ever, let's forget the last eight months of mixed messaging and the hubris that resulted in this moment. what they do now matters because people are watching. if the exposure happened on air force one and there was masking, sounds like there was no masking, there was rapid testing, the abbott sounds like that's what's being used, 30 to 40% false rate, i understand why they were using it in march, there is much better technology out there. when did this exposure happen? if it happened in flight, in the setting of masking, sounds like there wasn't masking, that's

vitally important information for the american people because then that tells us travel isn't safe for the president and his inner circle, it shouldn't be safe for us say going home for thanksgiving or christmas. already an open question now we should not do it. >> let's bring in michael steele. good morning, obviously our first concern as we've been saying is with the president, first lady and hope hicks and anybody else that may have been exposed. but it's not happening in a vacuum. it's happening in the home stretch of a presidential campaign. things will be on hold here for at least two weeks as dr. gupta said for quarantine. how do you see this impacting what happens in the next four weeks, what happens on election day? >> very good question, willie. the reality of it is, the two campaigns are in very different positions in this new reality. the trump campaign has largely relied on the in-person i got to

get out, be in the crowds, have face time with the american people. the biden campaign was we don't need to do that. we'll do the town halls via zoom. have a much more social media type of campaign. so i think, in the short term at least, the biden campaign is going to be better positioned to continue their campaign outreach and efforts, because they have already integrated that into their orpperations. the trump campaign is going to have to figure out how, at least the next two weeks, particularly given the president may be side lined so it may be difficult for him to do in-person, via zoom or other media outlet, those type of communications. how they continue a campaign in the face of this. what it means for the debates, the commission is probably sitting down right now trying to figure out do we even have the

next two debates given the nature of this? certainly, we don't know what the president's health is going to be to stand up for an hour and a half in front of a live audience of people, will there be now a live audience, maybe citizens ask their questions via zoom or another format. so there are a lot of things taking shape over the next week as we learn more about the true extent of the virus and the impact on the white house, the president's health and the campaign's ability to go tech and do what the biden campaign has been doing since the beginning of this. >> the biden campaign is waking up to this also. we know biden had planned to do door knocking beginning this weekend in new hampshire,

michigan, pennsylvania, those in-person conversations focussing on voter education and get out the vote efforts. michael steele does that change anything now as we look at this for the biden campaign and the way they campaign? >> i believe it does. what they had been doing, even with their voter contact, it really wasn't contact, so what they would do is go up to a house and put on the doorknob or in the door material and information about the campaign, how you can follow us online and things like that. so that was a form of voter contact without direct contact with the voter. so we'll see if they dial that back or if they continue those type of contactless voter outreach efforts in which you're getting material into the hands of voters across the country but not having the face-to-face contact with them. so each campaign is going to have to adapt right now.

again, the biden campaign had been using this tech a little bit more to their advantage because joe biden himself insisted that they did not want to have these big public events, these big public rallies in the face of covid-19. the trump campaign relied a lot more on those. and now they're going to have to do a shift and do they do that kind of voter contact where they don't have direct contact with voters, remains to be seen. the rnc is well prepared to do that. we've been doing these type of grass roots efforts get out the vote at campaign time before, but the trump mandate was very different than what they've been used to in the past. so they have to get back in the old groove in order to continue the campaign while the president is recovering from covid. >> joe, how far away was vice president biden during the debate. they had family members in the

audience not wearing masks and the two men were shouting at each other, or trump was shouting a lot. and chris wallace was shouting a lot. how far away? i know it was cleveland clinic and they were working very hard to make it a safe event, but you got to wonder at this point. people coming in and out of there, how they got in. how safe these men are at this point? >> obviously, both of these men are in their mid 70s. i wanted to go to jon meacham, but i'm going to hold off for a second to try to get a an answer to your question, mika, because again there was a distance between the two presidential candidates. i'm thinking, hoping if i were putting on a debate, i would make sure there would be great

ventilation like you have on a lot of commercial airliners to make sure the ventilation was moving air through there in a way that was safe for both president trump and vice president biden. my concern and obviously the cleveland clinic, one of the premier medical institutions on the planet, obviously were consulted, which brings me to the next question before we get to jon. i want to bring dr. gupta in, dr. dave back in. dr. gupta, my biggest concern about the debate are the reports we heard from the a.p.'s jonathan lemire that there were members traveling with hope hicks on a helicopter and then on air force one who when they were sitting in the audience

were not wearing masks even though they were required to wear masks and i believe jonathan lemire said were even asked, after sitting down without masks to put those masks on. that would be people sitting inside, in a contained area, for over 90 minutes without masks. talk about the medical -- the possible medical consequences of that and the risk factor for all those sitting around them. >> there's the video. >> dr. gupta? >> joe, you bet. vitally important here is what you just mentioned. no amount of ventilation is good enough in an indoor setting to mitigate risk of transmission. what we do know is that the risk of transmission, because we know covid-19 is likely an airborne

transmitted disease in part. it doesn't matter if you're 20 or 30 feet away you're going to get exposed to the particles, particularly with the way the president was behaving and talking. the audience members, the fact that many in the trump family were not wearing masks necessitates they must undergo a 14 day quarantine. they cannot assume a test, particularly the test they have at the white house is sufficient. even if they get a negative lab based test they need the 14 day policy. the chances of an indoor transmission is 19 times higher than if the debate happened outside. this is why understanding the series of events here, if hope hicks was symptomatic wednesday morning she was likely presymptomatic and infected tuesday night. meaning she could have been infectious then to those around

her. so was the president exposeding, does that mean the vice president was exposed as well and potentially could this be causing a cascading event. it's vital everyone is quarantined and tested. >> dr. dave i ask you the same questions as we see images of the trump family sitting inside after being exposed to somebody who may well have had covid. how dangerous is this for them and for those around them. >> inside with air conditioning you have to think about the direction of the air flow in addition to just being in a closed indoor space. we don't know in that conference room at the cleveland clinic which way the air was blowing. it was not filtered air. it's not an operating room where you blow filtered air in the direction you want it to

mitigate the risk of infection. it was an open conference room with ceilings and walls and air conditioning that was blowing past the president or toward him or past the family members in the audience or toward him. so everybody in the room is at risk, 19 times higher risk as dr. gupta pointed out. so there is no person who took part in the debate that should not self-quarantine, get tested and plan for the worst while perhaps hoping for the best. >> yeah, again, hoping for the best. as you said in your situation, even though you're over 60 for you your symptoms were mild. let's certainly hope for everybody that's on that list if they have covid their symptoms also are mild. at worst. let's bring in historian jon meacham and correspondent ken

dilanian. jon meacham let's begin with you. we saw in britain earlier this year, boris johnson only 55 years old i say only 55 years old compared to the president and vice president biden, 20 years younger, take a turn for the worst, go into intensive care and turnover -- deputize his foreign secretary to takeover duties wherever necessary. in the united states we have the 25th amendment, obviously, we have the dramatic examples of garfield and wilson. but also even under george w. bush and ronald reagan there were short times that the vice president took control for medical procedures. give us the history of this and

what we should be -- not expe expecting from this but what we could expect if the president for any reason follows the course of boris johnson and were to have to go to walter reed. >>. >> well, you're right there is a history of it. the 25th amendment which dates from the mid to late 1960s as part of the result of the fears and the anxiety of the cold war and a reaction to the kennedy assassination in 1963. attempted to, as the constitution and as amendments do attempted to offer a user's guide to complex and messy human situations. and no set of rules is ever perfect. the 25th as its push and pull, but if the president, and this

appears premature, but this would have been true three days ago without the news of last night and this morning, if the president chooses to temporarily hand off executive power to the vice president because he would be unconscious for a while for medical procedures, there's a pretty substantial history of that now. then, of course, the question is about the vice president, which goes to your contact tracing question. speaker pelosi, chuck grassley, the president protiem of the senate. that all feels premature to me right now. but people should read the 25th amendment, it's called the presidential disability provision. what seems to have happened, and it's not that surprising, is

that the virus got politicized, but as it turns out and as scientists told us, the virus isn't political. so we are confronted with a real life situation. this is not part of the reality show entertainment political complex that has driven so much of our public life in recent years. it's a sobering and -- moment that requires an informed citizenry, a vigilant citizenry, a vigilant congress, and this is what, you know, are we moving into crisis mode? we don't know yet. we do know that the most

unconventional presidency in american history in the most unconventional of years in this most unconventional of presidential campaigns has become yet more unconventional. because we are 32 days away from a presidential election. i would doubt that you're going to see any more presidential debates. i would doubt there's a vice presidential debate. this is just me speculating. but i will say the question before the country is pretty clear, right. the choice is clear. >> ken dilanian you spent the last 12 hours or so looking at what's happening behind the scenes here, the white house physician, dr. sean connelly, said the president can continue to carry out his duties, quote, without disruption he would do that from the executive mansion, the government would move forward. there's a question of whether the president should offer an address to assure the country he's okay.

what is happening right now, what is the white house, congress preparing for? >> i think jon meacham's words of caution are heeded here. there's a sense this is a dire national security situation, perhaps even a crisis, at the same time. unlike boris johnson, the president of the united states is the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military with the awesome nuclear force and he has a nuclear football at his disposal at all times and he needs to be mentally and cognitively in full capacity to be able to make split decisions about national security threats to the united states. so we'll hear a lot, i think, in the coming days about this term continuity of government. that is a term that koe notes a lot of different procedures and operations behind the scenes. it got a lot of attention after 9/11. it's war gamed and there are exercises every year where the government games out how it's

going to maintain operations in the event of a crisis. most of the planning has to do with catastrophic attacks, terrorist attacks and a lot of it involves whisking decision makers away to bunkers. there are places they would take the president northwein the eve crisis. but when you have the president infected with covid that's a problem. you wouldn't want an infected person with key decision makers. the other issue getting a lot of attention right now is the secession act of 1947. jon eluded to it. that's the law pursuant to the constitution makes a line of procession. after vice president pence it's house speaker who's 80 years old and then chuck grassley who's

87. there is debate about whether that law is constitutional. if the law was transferred to house speaker nancy pelosi even temporarily, a lot of legal scholars believe there could be challenges to that, which could throw the question of who who is in charge of the u.s. government in contention at a time when the government is preparing to repel cyber attacks and disinformation against the election. there's also president trump ordered the assassination of a top iranian general. there's a north korean nuclear program we're seeing developments on a nuclear basis. there's china, russia looming out there. so this is a very dire situation. we can expect that overnight government officials have been planning for all sorts of eventualli eventuallies, but the main term may be a political one. in the event that mike pence,

you know, has a problem and there's a question of nancy pelosi, it's not as clear as some people believe. >> as you say, let's hope we don't get close to that line of secession. secretary of state mike pompeo en route to croatia went back to talk to the traveling press saying he tested negative for coronavirus. he has a planned trip to asia last week. he said his last contact with president trump was on september 15th, which was two and a half weeks ago. at least we can say the secretary of state saying he has tested negative for coronavirus. >> and again, as ken said, the discussion he said we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but i -- i will tell you that, of course, i think all those in government, most of those in government have usually -- you

know, you hope for the best but always have to prepare for the worst. and even though the president has significant risk factors if you just look at the numbers, certainly the percentages are on the president's side of getting through this. certainly the percentages are on the president's side of not having major complications. so yes, i know he has several high risk factors, but again it's important though that even though that's the case for you to understand and others to understand that are watching right now, the united states government is doing everything -- or at least should be doing everything that it can -- >> yeah. >> -- to prepare for worst case scenarios. we have with us -- we are dealing with now with a pandemic that can spread extraordinarily quickly. that can have devastating

results for some people but barely impact others. and mika, our own medical correspondent, dr. dave campbell, again over 60 years old, a few risk factors, went through this and said it seemed like nothing more than allergies. i think a lot of americans have heard that is the case. but at the same time it would be reckless and irresponsible for all the people in contact with hope hicks over the past several days, if we can put that list up to be tested and for the government to do contact tracing. because the pandemic, if it gets out of control and if it spreads, and we have learned and the president knows he told bob woodward, it is dangerous because the virus is airborne, that's a difficult thing to control, it can spread quickly. that's why it's so critical,

mika, that everyone on this list and everyone who has been in contact with people on this list take all precautions to protect themselves and protect all of those around them. >> the question is will they do that. the other question is, is hope hicks the source of the president getting the coronavirus, and melania as well? we don't know that. there's a lot of contact tracing that needs to be done and a lot of steps that should be taken in light of the fact that there was exposure at the top level of this presidency. and we don't know if this white house will follow the guidelines and then i think there are massive questions about the debate. one of the doctors earlier in the show, dr. dave, talking about how anybody who was exposed to hope hicks or the president or anybody who could have had it should quarantine. what does that do to the campaign? how does that impact the presidency? it is just past the top of the hour right now --

>> one other thing, too mika, it's important to remember that obviously joe biden, his family, members of the campaign, were in that audience in cleveland during the debate. >> yeah. >> and obviously with at least five, six members of trump's family and entourage not wearing masks inside that room, there is a good chance they were exposed. now whether they caught anything, whether they have the virus or not, who knows. but obviously, there was increased risk that that, in fact, did happen because several members of president trump's family against the guidelines and against the advice of the cleveland clinic refused to wear masks. >> and the president has it. it is just past the top of the hour right new, let's get you caught up on this massive

breaking news. the president announced on twitter just before 1:00 this morning that he and the first lady tested positive for covid-19 last night. he posted, quote, we will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. we will get through this together. the first lady tweeted in part, we are feeling good and i have postponed all upcoming engagements. we know the president travelled to bedminister, new jersey yesterday for a fund-raiser. seni senior administration officials would not address if he was symptomatic but he did go to the fund-raiser knowing he was expose to the virus. we are told he'll work from the residence from now. this comes after news was rev l revealed that hope hicks had tested positive for the virus. a source tells nbc news hicks tested negative on wednesday

morning. we're told she began showing minor symptoms wednesday evening and was quarantined on air force one on the way back from the president's campaign rally in minnesota. her positive test came back yesterday morning. here's the president on fox news last night discussing hicks just hours before announcing his own diagnosis. >> she tested positive. she's a hard worker. a lot of masks. she wears masks a lot, but she tested positive. and i just went out with a test. i'll see what -- because we spent a lot of times -- and the first lady went out with a test also. 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 -- they want to hug you and they want to kiss you because we have done a good job for them. you get close and things happen. i was surprised to hear with hope, she's a warm person with them.

she knows there's a risk but she's young. >> jonathan just past the top of the hour, 7:00 on the east coast, 6:00 central time zone. and with people that are just waking up hearing the shocking news, could you walk through the time line that we discussed last hour. tell us about hope hicks, the movements she's made over the past three days, who she's been around, who's been exposed. >> sure thing, joe. first thing i'll say since the virus reached american shores and we know white house staffers have contracted it and other foreigner leaders we wondered if this day would come and the president has coronavirus. it started on monday with the president having an event about increased coronavirus testing

procedures at the white house. tuesday is when this matter comes into question. hope hicks is one of the president's closest aides, there during the 2016 campaign works in close proximity with him in the white house, is often one of the last people in the room with him, a true trusted confidant on the staff. she travelled with the president on tuesday to the debate in cleveland, ohio where the president squared off with joe biden for 90 minutes. she travelled again with the president on wednesday for a couple stops in minnesota, including a campaign rally. for both of those she was on marine one, the helicopter the president uses to travel to joint base andrews, now protocol is white house staffers wear masks on marine one. they do not, however, wear masks on air force one which is also a tight space.

the president has his own office on the airplane, staffers come in and out, often linger, he has them stay, talk. we know from our reporting she spent a lot of time with him there on the airplane as well as in various hold rooms in ohio on tuesday and minnesota on wednesday. and it was, indeed, wednesday evening where she started to feel sick while in minnesota. that morning she took a test -- everyone around the president does, has to take a rapid test, that includes reporters who travel with him in the press pool. her test came back negative. but she started to feel ill wednesday evening, isolated on air force one and took another test. that test came back positive. and the white house and staff were notified thursday morning. but after knowing that, kayleigh

mcenany briefed reporters yesterday morning, and then the president, despite knowing he had a confirmed exposure to a positive test travelled to bed minister, new jersey for a fund-raiser where he mingled with several dozen guests, none of them wearing masks. and returned to the white house. and last night he received a more accurate test that takes hours, it was then he eluded to that on his appearance with sean hannity at 9:00 and the then confirmed at 1:00 that he and the first lady had been confirmed positive for covid-19. >> can you tell me who else travelled in close proximity with hope hicks on tuesday and wednesday? >> on tuesday, she travelled with the senior leadership of both the west wing but also the campaign and several members of

the trump family. joe, we mentioned last hour how donald trump jr., eric trump, laura trump, and several other family members were in the audience in cleveland. took that i recall seats wearing masks and then proceeded to take them off and sat in the audience for 90-plus minutes maskless despite guidance from the debate information and despite being asked by a member of the cleveland clinic to put on masks. they refused. we know this has been part of the projection strategy the president and his team have taken all along. at the rallies, supporters rarely wear masks. the president himself rarely wears one. hope hicks on wednesday travel with a number of government officials, jared kushner and stephen miller, kayleigh mcenany, and within the west wing, of course, she's in close

contact with mark meadows, chief of staff and other high level ranking officials who have been in touch with and spent time with senior members of the congress, mark meadows spent a lot of time on capitol hill with covid relief negotiations and, of course, there's the president's supreme court nominee justice amy coney barrett who not only was with the president a few days ago but repeatedly has been with mark meadows, who's acting as her guy meeting with senators. all of whom need a robust contact tracing. this calls into question whether the hearings can still occur. and the president is supposed to quarantine for 10 to 14 days which would sideline him from the campaign trail with only a little over a month to go. >> let's bring in political reporter for "the washington post" and analyst robert costa, moderator of washington week on

pbs. jonathan laid out well the time line we've seen this week and the ripple effects that go out from the supreme court nominee to the chief of staff in the white house, to capitol hill. but let's start at the white house last night. people i've been in touch with late last night, early this morning seem to be in a state of shock about this, not sure how they proceed from here. but how concerned are they inside the white house according to your sources first about the president's health, putting aside the campaign and everything else for a moment, about his health? >> the president's top aides have been discussing this since thursday morning when they found out about the exposure and had the tests. and what i glean with senior republican sources is there are concerns about the president's consider morbidity, his age,

health. so you see concern but they're trying to play this out. they know the president behind the scenes for months has been speculating about possibly getting coronavirus, but -- and shrugging his shoulders about it. so they know that's going to likely be his mentality, at least moving forward. but one person inside the white house did tell me late last night, early this morning, that there is seriousness about this inside the west wing. that there is a darkness -- this is a bleak reality. they all hope, of course, the president recovers quickly but they know this is no joke with 200,000 americans dead. >> bob, was there any conversation yesterday, if they got the positive test from hope hicks in the morning, knew she had positive contacts with president trump, about not going

to the fund-raiser in new jersey yesterday and number two for his white house press secretary to not go out without a mask and go out and have a long engagement with the press. >> we often write these stories where we're trying to figure out the timeline, that's what we're doing now. decisions were made after ms. hicks had her exposure and her test came back, decisions were made about how to move forward and have interactions with the press core and members of the american public. i don't want to get ahead of that story but decisions were made that women come under skroo scrutiny in the next 24 to 36 hours. >> this isn't the first time that members of the press corps have complained, bitterly at times, about the fact they have been flown to rallies -- the president's rallies and been

given notice of rallies sometimes without much notice at all. and some of the rallies have been inside and extraordinarily dangerous conditions. at least if you follow the trump administration's own guidelines about how to act and protection yourself in the age of covid. but by the white house's own guidelines, the cdc's own guidelines, many members of the press felt they have been put in danger many times in the past. but that was a general threat. the fact that the press secretary went in knowing she had been exposed earlier in the day -- finding out earlier in the day, and then going in and having contentious back and forths with members of the press, again without wearing a mask, obviously has to be of great concern to all of those people that -- and if you've ever been inside that room, you

know that is a very, very tight, very confined space. much smaller in person than it looks on tv. >> before i go to dr. bhadelia, can i follow-up on this and ask what is the responsibility of the white house press secretary, because -- is it a fair question to ask that she may have been told not to release that information? like how does she go out there to inform the public about the status of the coronavirus, the coronavirus task force, the president's position on different issues, responding to questions but not tell members of the press core that she has been exposed to someone who's exposed to the president who has tested positive for the coronavirus. >> let's go to jon meacham. if you look at bob woodward's shocking revelations a couple weeks ago, what happened

yesterday with the press secretary actually is just -- it's an event that encapsulates this administration's attempt over the past six, seven eight months to hide from the american people the truth about this disease. the danger we all face. >> that must have been a decision. >> especially our senior citizens. but there we saw illustrated in the starkest terms exactly what this administration has been doing. having information regarding covid and keeping it away from people whose lives are in danger. yesterday, of course, we had the press secretary going out when she knew that she could be endangering the lives of people inside the press briefing room. just like we had the president of the united states knowing that he had been exposed, perhaps quite a bit, to a member of his staff because they had

been in close quarters on helicopters, most likely as jonathan lemire said in the white house, and then he, of course -- here he's -- yesterday he's in close contact with the military officer and then went up to a fund-raiser in new jersey where jonathan lemire said people were not wearing masks. >> truth and transparency have been in short supply in this presidency. they are not always in abundant supply even in the best of years, in the best of eras. i think what we have to do our best to insist on in this remarkable moment that we're in, is moving forward now can, in fact, there be transparency in which we can trust the information we're being told. honestly, i'm deeply skeptical of that. given what you just laid out,

given the history of the administration. but it is a fundamental obligation to the public, particularly when there's an election in 32 days. and so, i think that in so far as we can stand up as citizens and as members of congress and the press and the voices that form the democratic, lower case d, culture of the united states, a democratic culture that's been under immense stress and strain, even before covid and which is now under sustained stress and strain because of that, we have to insist on that. that's not a partisan point we wish the president, the first lady, the members of congress, the entire apparatus of government and the president's supporters that he's encountered, all the very, very best.

science matters. facts matter. the truth matters. >> okay. so let's bring in infectious disease physician and medical director at the special pathogen unit at boston university school of medicine, dr. nahid bhadelia, an nbc news contributor. i'd like to hear what questions come to your mind given the fact that the president and his wife both have been diagnosed with covid-19. i'm specifically interested in any questions you may have about the debate and the potential need for anyone or everyone who was at the debate to quarantine, their risk of exposure? >> good morning, what a morning to wake up to. with everyone else i want to wish the president and the first lady a speedy recovery and hopefully no further complications from covid-19. in this scenario what i'm hoping

is happening behind the scenes you mentioned contact tracing. the first 24 hours after you discover someone has a positive test are the most integral. you don't want to miss the missed contact because if they become sick and you don't catch them they have the infection and spread it to others. what's happening probably behind the scenes is the contact tracing backwards. looking to see where ms. hicks and the president and others were exposed. because it's not necessarily a one way street where ms. hicks might have exposed president trump and the first lady. it might be they both had a common exposure of a third party. a lot of times when trying to figure out a prime source because they tested positive so close together, what we do is further analysis once we get an idea of everybody else who's been infected in the area, we get a better sense of who the virus jumped from, one person to

another, and something like that may occur once we get a better idea of everyone else who might be positive and we may find more of the people around the president may have been positive. i wouldn't be surprised by that, given the way this disease transmits. the other type of contact tracing that's likely happening is contact tracing forward. that's where everybody that the president has come into contact with, the way we look at it, we consider somebody to be infectious up to -- at least up to 48 hours before they got a positive test or when they had symptoms, which would place us at the time of the debate. so the consideration is, cdc considers those as close contact to a person who's positive as anybody who's been within 6 feet of a person positive for more than 15 minutes. so on that stage you had vice president biden, the distance between is much farther, yet there was a 90-minute

conversation which has been mentioned before where the president was animated we know that speaking loudly and or rating carry risks, so there is that question and whether or not the vice president and others will have to be quarantined will be a decision that the cdc and other medical prosk analogies make based on what their assessment of the risk is to those individuals. >> just this morning, vice president biden we understand will get a coronavirus test this morning because of his potential exposure at the debate. and former new jersey governor chris christie said he was at the white house from saturday to tuesday for debate prep said no one was wearing masks in the room prepping the president. so that opens up exposure to a new group of people. >> dr. bhadelia, i know because you're a good and responsible doctor you don't want to speculate about the president's condition because you're not treating him. but knowing what you know about his age, medical reports, what is your level of concern for him

specifically? >> i think, willie, you and joe discussed this earlier, we never know the individual's particular course because there have been people considered potentially in the high risk category that have a pretty mild condition, the things that concern me are the president's age and the fact that as dr. gupta said earlier he may have this metabolic syndrome based on his weight, that might lead him to be at higher risk. i will be concerned. i think his physicians will watch him closely and ensure he's not developing symptoms and to watch him closely and if he does, he gets the best possible care as quickly as possible. i want to go back to the mask issue. i fear that the strategy that the administration has taken if we test everybody we're okay, we won't have to wear masks. and this is a perfect example of how tests are not infallible.

tests can come back negative when they shouldn't be. this is true for rapid tests. the use of masks in each of these scenarios would have prevented infections and what we now consider as a prevailing knowledge if you put a mask on it decreases the dose of the virus you might be exposed to so that decreases the severity of the disease you may end up getting even if exposed. >> the abbott tests are not reliable. we heard time and again that studies show maybe 30 to 50% of them provide false negatives. and given that, the fact, as chris christie has now said, nobody around the white house had been wearing masks during debate prep, that they don't wear masks around the white house, we've seen time and again exam p examples of them not wearing masks around the white house. talk about how that increases the risk to anybody inside the white house who has gotten covid

just because again of the intensity of the disease. that actually, it's the virus load that actually has a big impact on how somebody is going to react to actually getting the coronavirus. >> owe, the chances of one getting ge getting the infection, first it's whether you're indoors, and it's the amount of time you're spending with that person and if you have the luck of being with someone who's a prolific shedder, shedding a lot of virus, we don't understand what leads some people to shed more than others yet. so the fact they were not wearing the masks, in my mind has always been a russian roulette. you walk into the rooms feeling like because you got the test you're invincible. this is the perfect example. the rest of us have -- the rest

of americans don't have the luxury of ensuring that everybody that comes around them has a negative test that morning. imagine the risk the rest of us have been carrying the last six to eight months as this has been going on. so what i hope happens is that we haven't seen a good example from the administration in terms of mask wearing and in terms of quarantine. the cdc guidelines say if you're exposed you need to be quarantined. last night the press secretary should have been quarantined after she learned she might have been exposed to somebody who was positive. the next thing we might see, the other cdc guidance that applies here is people who are sick, who have a positive test, are symptomatic -- so what the president and the first lady are actually doing is isolateding. they're not quarantining. we isolate people who are sick, quarantine people who are exposed. people who are sick should be isolated about ten days after their symptom onset. if they don't have symptoms it's

got to be ten days from when their test was positive. >> okay. dr. nahid bhadelia, thank you very much. trump is now the third world leader to contract the virus. joining us from paris is matt bradley. what is the world reaction, matt? >> reporter: mika, we're getting normal reporting. world leaders have maybe the temptation for some of them, especially the ones that were spurned by donald trump and the allies to wag their fij finger at the president, nobody is doing that. they're extending sympathy and best wishes to the president. you mentioned the two other world leaders. it's hard to find an example for this unusual presidency looking abroad at other world leaders but there are examples. the two world leaders you mentioned in, bosa narrow of

brazil and boris johnson. we saw boris johnson the prime minister of britain, he was never as skeptical of the coronavirus maybe as president donald trump was, but at the same time he wasn't as concerned about it as some other world leaders like say angela merkel of germany. but he was somewhat concerned. when he got the disease he was deeply affected by it. it was a devastating blow for him. he was in intensive care for quite a long time. when he got out, he had a different political perspective. it actually changed the rhetoric that came out of 10 downing street. he said that he was basically 50/50 chance of living or dying. while he was in the hospital, he was exposed to britain's controversial but much loved

national health service one that is constantly making headlines. he was cared by immigrants, especially one portuguese man who were able to help him go from almost near death and bring him back to life and because of that, that gave boris johnson a humbling experience and a topical issue, which is hhs and immigration. it definitely softened his rhetoric on those two important topical issues in britain at the same time. now contrast that doing a tale of two leaders with bolsanaro in brazil. he flirted with conspiracy theories and boasted that as a former athlete, a former military man he would beat the virus if he got it. that's why he was able to walk around with the people, shaking

hands. he was almost boastful about the thing. then he got his wish, got the coronavirus, got symptoms of it and he recovered. and he was able to post about how his athleticism, he even boasted to reporters that had they gotten the disease, you wimps wouldn't have been able to survive like i did. but in both cases i have to tell you, the end result it improved their popularity. guys? >> thank you so much matt. greatly appreciate that update. bob costa, the president -- we'll see how the president responds to his brush with the coronavirus with actually he and the first lady getting covid. but thursday night, just last night, the president had told a

crowd that the end of the pandemic is in sight. obviously that's been what he's been saying the past, six, seven, eight months. what challenges does this bring to the president's messaging as he moves forward, moves through covid and we suspect, if all things go well for him and he gets back on the campaign trail? >> unlike prime minister johnson, president trump faces the verdict of voters in about 30 days. and this episode of president trump saying he has contracted the coronavirus upends the 2020 presidential campaign and some of the key fronts the president focuses on, the stock market look at the future numbers this morning, there's a dip there. this is amid an economic crisis and the president's ability to tell the truth and to be forceful on the reality of the

coronavirus has been a nonstop story since march, since this became a global pandemic. this is the animating issue of the campaign. we can separate wishing the president and the first lady and anyone who has contracted coronavirus the best wishes, hope for a speedy recovery but still coolly analyze the political situation here. a president under siege and falling behind in battlegrounds, mostly because the polls show his handling of the coronavirus, now has contracted it, and this will define the campaign in the final weeks in terms of how voters process not only the president's personal situation but how he has handled it as a national leader. >> if you're just waking up it's 7:33 here on the east coast, president trump and first lady melania trump announced before 1:00 in the morning today that they both tested positive for coronavirus. let's continue our conversation

with associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political post eugene robinson. and host of politics nation reverend al sharpton. rev, let me begin with you what are your thoughts this morning as you woke up to the same news we did? >> first of all, i wish the president and the first lady that they have full recovery and it is not any more serious than it is. i think that the appeal that i make is that we do not those of us opposed to him, and many of us aggressively so, don't take this as a moment of i told you so or finger pointing. but really take this as a moment to say, this is why we need to deal with the reality of what impact this pandemic has had on this country. that even the president and the first lady, who has the best

medical and health advisers and personnel available to them, that it can reach them. and i would hope that -- you know, the only conversation i had with the president since he's been president was i called him in the pandemic and asked him about testing the homeless and incarcerated, the people that are vulnerable. i hope we take this moment to try to come to terms on another stimulus package. people suffering out there, with no thing they caused of their own, it would be wonderful if now pelosi and manu chin could say while we pray for the president, whether we agree with them or not, let's come together and take care of the people of the country. the worse we can become is become mocking because we felt like he mocked others.

i hope we don't miss an opportunity to rise up and show we can be better than the situations that we protest. >> amen to that, rev. gene robinson as we look at this now, tomorrow will be one month until election day. this is happening in the home stretch of a presidential campaign. the president will be sidelined for about two weeks as doctors said he can carry out his duties without disruption was the way he put it from the executive mansion of the white house. joe biden is going to get a coronavirus test this morning because he was on stage frankly being yelled at by president trump for about 90 minutes, three days ago. joe biden evaluating whether he's going to michigan today. how do you think we talk about the president's health but how does this reshape the next month of the campaign? >> first, willie, let me join in the chorus of sending best wishes to the president, first

lady, and hope hicks, and frankly to anyone else who might have been exposed in this exposure, if it is one event of exposure, and i hope they recover, if they have symptoms their symptoms are mild and they recover quickly. and that's a sincere wish. but what does it do to the campaign? we have absolutely no idea. this already was a presidential campaign like no other. you could argue that since joe biden had already been doing most of his campaigning virtually and had an extremely limited travel schedule that he was just starting to pick up and this campaign was drawing this sort of new way of campaigning for president due to the presence of the pandemic and the fact that so many of us are

vulnerable to it. you could argue that he could kind of -- he's in a better position to continue doing what he was doing, whereas president trump likes and needs that sort of personal contact. he had really ramped up his travel schedule. obviously that cannot happen for the next couple of weeks and these are the last weeks before the election. and we should also note by the way, the election is already going on. people are already voting in a lot of states. and as we get more polls and as we focus on the states that are really going to matter, that are really in play, both campaigns are kind of dying to get their candidates to those states and they can't do that now. and we'll see what happens when vice president biden, he has to get tested today. everybody in that hall really needs to be tested today.

and we'll do from there, we just don't know. >> i know i still want to understand more about what happened in the debate hall and whether or not the people in it need to quarantine, especially given that donald trump's children were in the audience not wearing masks. and donald trump was on stage with joe biden. jonathan lemire, we're all projecting forward, but you've been really focused on the chain of events, the tiktok of what's happened. i want to understand more about how it was disclosed to the world, to the press, to the american people, that hope hicks was positive for coronavirus. because with kayleigh mcenany knowing this and going out to inform the media of things that are important for them to know, not only for their own safety but information that the american people have a right to, was there a decision to conceal

that hope hicks had coronavirus or was it announced by the white house? do we know how it came out? >> we do indeed mika. let's underscore that hope hicks is one of the president's most trusted and senior aides, one in close proximity with him many hours a day. the world learned of her positive diagnoses from a media report, credit to jennifer jacobs at bloomberg news who broke the news. the white house, let me say that again, the white house did not release this information. they did not publicly disclose it. we, media outlets were able to confirm it after the bloomberg report and then the president himself did disclose that he and the first lady had been tested positive in a tweet after 1:00 a.m. we've pressed the white house as to why they did not disclose information and they have not responded to that.

previous, they've been cagy, not making announcements saying they want to protect the privacy and health updates with people who work at the white house. but this is an understanding that this is someone there's national security implications for someone so close to the president for so long, particularly in the last few days. and to bob costa's point a moment ago, which is spot on, you know, of course, we all wish that the people involved are healthy and recover, but we need to coolly analyze what happens next. and indeed, the president has spent basically since march trying to make this election about anything other than just a referendum on his handling of the pandemic. trying to make it a choice between himself and his democratic opponent, joe biden. and we have seen him, whether that would be law and order, defense of confederate statues, he's been unable to do so.

and now after downplaying the threat for so long he gets it, and it overshadows everything else about the campaign. >> there are, obviously as you said, national security implications that the trump administration are sorting through right now. there are also, of course, complications that have to do with the proper functioning of government, if you see the list of the people that hope hicks has been in contact with over the last three days -- again, the threat -- let's just be very direct about this. it has nothing to do with the politics and has everything to do with science and medicine, the threat would be far less if everyone on this list wore masks -- >> right. >> -- when they were in confined spaces but donald trump, melania trump, we've seen, especially the president, has mocked people

wearing masks. you have robert o'brien, rudy giuliani, mark meadows also a man who mocked reporters for wearing masks. ivanka trump, eric trump, laura trump, tiffany trump, all refused to wear masks at the debate. despite the fact members of the cleveland clinic came up to them and asked them to waeear masks. despite the fact that there were guidelines saying everybody inside that room had to wear masks. we can go down the rest of the list. we know stephen miller and dan scavino were in the helicopter with hope hicks and not wearing masks at least while they were getting onto the helicopter and not wearing masks while they were there. but then we learned this morning from former new jersey governor chris christie and also someone who was with the president throughout the weekend, through

tuesday preparing him for the debate, governor chris christie said that no one, no one that was in the rooms where the president was preparing for the deba debate tuesday night with governor chris christie were wearing masks. it's interesting tuesday night the president of the united states mocked joe biden for actually wearing masks. so, this is not brought up for political purposes. but this is actually something that members of the trump administration, i pray members of the trump administration are considering right now because this not only impacts what's going on inside the white house, this will also impact what's going on with a lot of united states senators who have underlying conditions with the nominee for the united states supreme court amy coney barrett,

who was in contact with mitch mcconnell, who was in contact with mark meadows, who is in contact with several other people across the senate. and so you start seeing how this ripples out and, of course, it becomes a much greater threat, mika, because, as dr. fauci has said, as the cdc has said, as the trump administration has said, even if the president of the united states sometimes has undermined these statements that the wearing of a mask significantly cuts down on the passage of the virus, of the aerosol that spreads the virus. and so, that's why hopefully this morning the white house is working to see who has been exposed to this virus and they can start making contingency plans in case there are some bad

developments with members of the administration or even members of the senate who are impacted by this covid outbreak. >> i'm especially concerned that nobody was informed and that the white house briefing wasn't used to inform the american people about this exposure. and it -- it raises the question what else don't we know. we're going to continue to follow this breaking news after a quick break. when we come back we'll get reaction on capitol hill and get a sense of how this story is playing out on wall street as well. we'll be right back with much more developing news on "morning joe." - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one disposable pad.

....how to ensure your vote counts......because of covid-19 presidential election, ......polling locations ......confusion is high.. (fisherman vo) how do i register to vote? (working mom vo) i think i'm already registered. ...hmm!...hmm!...hmm! (woman on porch vo) can we vote by mail here? (man on porch vo) lemme check. (woman vo) thank you! (man vo) thank you! (grandma vo) you'll be safe, right? (daughter vo) yes!

(four girls vo) the polls! voted! (grandma vo) go out and vote! it's so important! (man at poll vo) woo! (grandma vo) it's the most important thing you can do! and the veterans that never quit on their team. when being a fan gets tough, and stretching your budget gets even tougher... ...our agents put in the time and legwork for you, ...so saving on auto insurance is easy. because saving a little extra goes a long way. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. lookentertainmentour experience: xfinity x1. it's the easiest way to watch live tv and all your favorite streaming apps. plus, x1 also includes peacock premium at no extra cost.

this baby is the total package. it streams exclusive originals, the full peacock movie library, complete collections of iconic tv shows, and more. yup, the best really did get better. magnificent. xfinity x1 just got even better, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. no strings attached. governor, you were part of the debate prep. what can you tell us about the

bubble? were folks wearing masks? were you wearing a mask? was rudy giuliani wearing a mask when you were working with the president and others in the room? >> no, no one was wearing masks in the room. when we were prepping the president during that period of time, and we were -- the group was about five or six people in total. >> all right. that's chris christie confirming what we wureporting earlier, what he said about what he saw during debate prep. which is a lot of exposure. let's bring in nbc news senior business correspondent stephanie ruhle. stephanie, you're looking at a lot of angles here including wall street. what are your thoughts? >> hey, mika. you know, first things first. for wall street, for investors, uncertainty is always the enemy of the stock market. and even before the president contracted coronavirus, the biggest concern to investors was chaos around the upcoming election. not who was going to be the next

president, how this was going to play out, would it be peaceful? this obviously adds to the chaos, and go deeper than that. we saw dow futures down 500. they have come back somewhat, but if you look inside and see what has been hit hardhardest, how we behave. travel, leisure, hospitality, oil, and gas drop, because people when they see news like this, say maybe i'm not going to go to the store, maybe i'm not going to rush back to work. it's the president who over and over has been saying the coronavirus is behind us. let's get back to work. this kind of stops everyone in their tracks and reminds me. the economic crisis is directly linked to the health crisis. and when we don't have this thing under control from a health perspective, the economy is not just going to come back. there's two other things i would point out. we were already focused on the jobs report coming out at 8:30 today. this is the last one we'll get before the upcoming election. we know at least 26 million

people already are out of work. another 800,000 in the last week, and we saw huge companies announce layoffs. you're not going to see this news from the president advance things at all. you're going to see more businesses say let's slow down a bit. when you have work from home, businesses are working, but they're not necessarily thriving, and they don't need all the employees that they once had, so we're likely to see more layoffs as people start to say, let's put the brakes on things. the one maybe silver lining, this could get congress back to the negotiating table with regard to the next stimulus package. we know it passed in the house. this could potentially get republicans in the senate to the table. >> all right, stephanie, thank you for that analysis. we'll see you at 9:00 eastern time on msnbc, and your guest today is speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. we'll be looking forward to watching that. stephanie, thank you. and we will have more coverage of this breaking story in just a moment. - [announcer] meet the ninja foodi air fry oven.

make family-sized meals fast. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away.

♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever.

♪ this is the feeling of total protection now that we protect your identity, mobile phone, auto, home and life you've never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today you've never been ikeeping your oysters te busihas you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo - with spray moppingrk vacmop to lock away debrisuction and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one disposable pad.

welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday, october 2nd. let's get right to the breaking news. the president announced on twitter just before 1:00 this morning that he and the first lady tested positive for covid-19 last night. he posted, quote, we will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. we will get through this together. the first lady tweeted in part, we are feeling good and where have postponed all upcoming engagements. we know the president traveled to bedminster yesterday for a fund-raiser. senior officials would not address if he's symptomatic. we're told he will work from the white house residence. this news comes after it was revealed that senior white house aide and a member of the president's inner circle, hope hicks, had tested positive for the virus. a source tells nbc news hicks tested negative on wednesday morning.

we are told she began showing minor symptoms wednesday evening and was quarantined on air force one. on the way back from the president's campaign rally in minnesota. her positive test came back yesterday morning. >> and willie, as jonathan lemire reported earlier, it was not the white house who told the world that hope hicks had tested positive for covid-19. but rather it was jennifer jacobs with bloomberg who also is reporting this morning that some of donald trump's closest aides sensed on wednesday that the president was feeling poorly. the president seemed exhausted, jacobs writes, and she was told that some chalked it up to fatigue from an intense campaign schedule, but others began to worry about the coronavirus. also, jacobs reporting that vladimir putin has sent donald trump a telegram this morning

and says that he -- i am sure your inherent vitality, spirit, and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus. vladimir putin wrote, but of course, we are not concerned with what vladimir putin is saying this morning. instead, we're concerned, obviously, about the president of the united states, the commander in chief's health. living in the dangerous world that we live in, and also, of course, the first lady, hope hicks, other people inside the white house. but as we look at the number of people, willie, who have been surrounded, who have surrounded hope hicks and we hear from chris christie this morning that nobody over four days as their preparation for the debate was going between friday and tuesday, nobody in the rooms, says former new jersey governor

and trump adviser, at least during these debates, chris christie, says nobody was wearing a mask. and of course, donald trump not wearing a mask for most of the time. reports that melania trump, though she entered with a mask on, reports that she was not wearing a mask during the debate. mark meadows, of course, he plays a significant role in all of this. another man who mocked reporters for wearing masks on capitol hill. but mark meadows was on capitol hill this week. obviously, working on a covid package, but also moving around the senate with amy coney barrett going to other senators' offices, trying to work on her confirmation process. so the possibility of these infections spreading is certainly something that the

white house should prepare for. you look at the percentages and the percentages are certainly on the side of most of these people being perfectly fine and getting through it. but obviously, a reason for concern for those older who may be impacted by the disease. >> also in that photograph that we just had up there with judge amy coney barrett, the majority leader mitch mcconnell. mark meadows there right in front of the american flag. in the foreground, vice president mike pence. we can report now vice president pence and the second lady karen pence have tested negative this morning, that's according to their press secretary. they were quite concerned. tested negative this morning. that's in addition to secretary of state mike pompeo. we learned he too has tested e negative. he said his last exposure with the president was two and a half weeks ago. if you look at that graphic of 21 people exposed to hope hicks,

that's just the beginning of the story. you take mark meadows on the hill, meeting with mitch mcconnell. who did mcconnell meet with. the different senators, who did they meet with after that? that's the nature of this terrible disease. contact tracing is under way, it will continue this morning, but the ripple effects go out so far, it's almost two difficult to calculate at this point. we can remind people as we talk about the debate on tuesday night that the president and vice president joe biden were not wearing masks. they were at a distance, but obviously, the conversation was animated. you remember at one point, president trump mocked vice president biden for wearing a mask too often. let's bring back into our conversation a person freporter associated press, jonathan lemire. you have been walking us through this timeline all morning long. let's come out and say we're relying so far on information from the white house, the media is doing its job, but these announcements have come from the white house, and they don't have

a great track record, frankly, of credibility on communicating anything, and now this dire story is going to require some clear communication. >> willie, there are few more vital national security issues than the health of the president of the united states, and indeed, we, not just the media, but we as the american public and the world will be relying on the white house for updates on the condition and to be clear, this white house does not have much credibility in terms of their truthfulness and ability to disclose information, particularly negative information about the president's health or otherwise. so certainly, that is a concern here in part, probably will rattle financial markets and make global markets uneasy as indeed we wait to see how the president is doing, and to add to the bloomberg report of a few moments ago that joe just read, i talked to republican official who noted that yesterday, prior to the diagnosis, the president had a conference call with supporters in iowa, and his

voice was rather raspy, and it was described as being sort of not feeling great, according to someone else that i talked to. that doesn't mean necessarily that was symptoms of the kroe coronavirus, itsber certainly it's something people will be watching. in terms of the president's diagnose, yes, he's negative for now, but we have been hearing he will probably need to be tested again in the coming days to make sure that's the case, that he's still not in the incubation period. he had less contact with the president and hope hicks over the last 48 to 72 hours than other senior staffers. the vice president had been on his own campaign schedule. he had not been in the white house. he was not on the trip to either the debate or to minnesota with the president. the last that we know that he saw president trump was tuesday during the day at the white house for a brief interaction. but certainly, this is an extraordinary week for this presidency, and a timeline which we can certainly go through again if you like, but it should be highlighted this part alone,

certainly, that hope hicks was traveling back on air force one wednesday night and was feeling sick. she was isolated on the plane, feeling symptoms of the coronavirus. she then received a positive diagnose on thursday, during the day. the white house did not disclose that, and even though at that point they knew that president trump had an exposure with someone who had tested positive for coronavirus, he continued on to a fund-raiser in bedminster new jersey where he met with dozens of people not wearing masks. and those people, along with legions of senior government officials, members of congress, a supreme court nominee, will all now need to be part of this contact tracing program. >> all right, let's bring in former obama white house health policy adviser and vice provost of global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania, dr. ezekiel emanuel. he's an nbc news and msnbc senior medical contributor. zeke, i just want to show the list of hope hicks and everybody

that we believe she might have been exposed to that we can see on video that she was exposed to. i'm wondering what questions and concerns come to your mind looking at this list, and then i would also include people who are at the fund-raiser in bedminster as well as anyone and everyone who attended the debate. >> well, first of all, i think you're going to have to go back to last thursday, actually, and get the full list of everyone she came into contact with, without a mask for probably ten minutes, because she, you know, she developed symptoms on wednesday, it's usually four to six days after you get infected. and the day or two before you develop symptoms are when you're most infectious. as you appropriately say, tuesday or maybe monday, tuesday, and wednesday are going to be the key days, but they're not the only days we need to be

worried about. and similarly, with the president, he was developing fatigue on wednesday. you know, tuesday is a very worrisome day. tuesday evening at the debate, it's got three characteristics that make me nervous. you're indoors for a prolonged period of time, and there were a lot of forced exhuhilations, a lot of yelling, and even with six feet apart, as we have seen, that's no guarantee that you're not spewing out the droplets and aerosol of covid, and both the vice president and the president didn't have masks. this does prove the importance of mask wearing and staying six feet apart, if anything else does. >> so zeke, are you saying that you're concerned about vice president biden and chris wallace and anyone who may have been on stage or backstage with the president? >> yes, i'm sure that there was good air exchange, hepa filtering. nonetheless, they were, you know, near each other for -- they were six feet apart, but no

masks for a prolonged period of time. and you know, that has to make you worry. and again, we're going to have to wait for four to six days before saying anything definitive. >> so zeke, let's walk through this timeline, and i want to bring in jonathan lemire, too. so jonathan, maybe you can give us some background, because we're acting this morning like it's only the tuesday and wednesday and thursday that matters, because we're laymen here, and certainly not doctors. so you say, so let's work this timeline back. so hope hicks on wednesday began developing symptoms. you say you have to go back four days before that, zeke? so that would be saturday, perhaps saturday, sunday.

>> four to six days from when she got infected. she probably got infected somewhere between thursday and saturday. and again, it's unclear where that came from. and it might be very important to find out because we don't know whether she got it from someone who is asymptomatic within the white house, someone from outside the white house in her larger social circle. and then, people are most infected for the day or two prior to developing symptoms, so if she developed symptoms on wednesday, you should look to monday, tuesday for the people that she was in contact with. and again, the highest risk are closed quarters for prolonged periods of time, forced exh exhalations. those are the things we need to worry about.

>> jonathan lemire, certainly, chris christie's comments earlier today take on added import when he said that for those preparing for the debate from thursday through tuesday, they were in rooms where nobody was wearing a mask. can you tell me if you have any direct knowledge of who was in those rooms? was hope hicks ever in the room? obviously, since she's one of the president's closest aides and she's usually, when in the white house, she's usually on most days with the president of the united states, do you have any knowledge, working knowledge, on whether she was actually in that room while the debate preparations were going on? >> joe, it had been reported earlier in the week, long before this story broke, that she had been a presence at some of those preparations. she wasn't there constantly, but sort of in and out. it's her role as senior white

house adviser. she sees the president several times a day. often dozens of times a day. she was not a central figure in the debate preparations like chris christie or jared kushner or the campaign manager, bill stepien, or i should melntion rudy giuliani, who was there every minute during the debate preparations and also traveled with the president to cleveland on tuesday. if we're backing up further here to expand this window of possible infection from the weekend and into the end of last week, that also includes another robust stretch of presidential travel where hope hicks was part of, where he had stops in florida and georgia and virginia. at the end of last week into the weekend. before then, working on debate prep for a couple days and then having an event on monday at the white house about coronavirus testing. and then of course, as we have been discussing, on to the debate tuesday night in cleveland, and then the events wednesday in minnesota, which is where hope hicks first started

to feel sick. >> so let's talk about the two days that dr. emanuele said could be where hope hicks was the most contagious, the two days before she started feeling symptoms. the doctor said that would be monday and tuesday if she started feeling symptoms on wednesday. can you recall off the top of your head what was going on in the white house, what was going on around the president on those two days? obviously, tuesday was preparation for the debate. tell us about monday and tuesday. >> yeah, the president remained at the white house on monday for indeed that event to tout the development of the abbott rapid test and other coronavirus testing equipment. it had been previously announced this was happening. it was right around the convention, but this was the time they sort of did up a rose garden ceremony to note this accomplishment, to suggest as

part of their narrative that the administration had gotten its hands around the virus and the nation was turning its corner on the pandemic. so hope hicks certainly was there for that event. she was in the white house all day monday, as was the president. there was no travel on monday. and then tuesday, he did remain also in washington until, of course, heading to the debate that night where he traveled with a rather large contingent of advisers, white house personnel, senior campaign staff, of course, and as we have been discussing, members of his own family wir also part of the traveling party, would have been in the hold rooms at the debate hall in cleveland and in the auditorium itself where members of the trump children, including ivanka trump, donald trump jr., and eric trump walked into the hall wearing masks and made a point of taking them off and refused to put them back on even when advised by a cleveland clinic staffer. >> your concerns about president

trump specifically? obviously, you're not treating him, you don't know anything about his condition at this point, but 74-year-old man, has metabolic syndrome, according to most people who have observed his thin medical records, the ones we have seen publicly. how concerned would you be if you were his doctor this morning about his contraction of coronavirus? >> let me emphasize the american public the world knowathize least about the health of this man, maybe compared to ronald reagan or certainly the only previous president, the most obscure is john kennedy with his addison's disease. second of all, he is, as you say, mid 70s, male, both of which dramatically increase your risk, if you're a mid-70s person, the mortality rate if you get covid is over 10% up to about 11%, according to the cdc. males are at twice the risk of serious outcomes compared to women. so that increases his risk. and then we know that

comorbidities raise it. he is obese. metabolic syndrome is sort of a pre-diabetic syndrome. diabetes really increases the risk. i have not examined the president. i obviously haven't seen the full record, but you have to be seriously concerned about his situation. so this is a real worry. >> yeah, let's bring in right now columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius, and his story, and jon meacham. david, this for any government would be a national security crisis. it's interesting that the president's national security adviser told him back in january that this would be the greatest crisis that he faced during his presidency. as we wake up this morning, at the beginning of october, we're looking at an administration, a white house that has been exposed to the most deadly virus

over the past 100 years. and are furiously undergoing contact tracing right now to see who is impacted. not only in the white house but also on capitol hill, throughout the administration, and even with a chief justice pick. good news this morning, at least based on reports, the secretary of state has reported, mike pompeo, that he has tested negative. mike pence has also reported that he has tested negative. the question for the vice president and one that hopefully the white house will clarify soon enough is whether that was an abbott test, which has shown fallibility, as many as 30 to 50 false negative test results, or whether he actually took a covid test that's more accurate. but david, what are your thoughts this morning? what are your concerns?

what should the national security team be doing right now to make sure that this does not evolve into more of a national security crisis for this country? >> joe, this administration has been unusually personal in its approach to national security, foreign affairs, basically everything revolves around the oval office. that's sometimes been frustrating for people, our national security machinery of the sort that every recent administration has had centered around the national security council has not been working smoothly, again, because the president intervenes so often. so the decider in chief, sometimes we say the disrupter, is going to be presumably standing back. one question i have is whether donald trump just emotionally is going to be able to put that phone down and stop tweeting or whether from his bedside he's going to want to stay involved. i'm sure people will advise him,

mr. president, you need to get better. as we all will say. you need to take care of this illness. i think, joe, in a larger sense, this is a world that's been astonished by the american inability to bring this virus under control. and now, here's the most dramatic symbolic evidence that american denial of the seriousness of this, president trump's denial, has been shown to be wrong. i'm sure there will be sympathy globally as there will be nationally. people will feel bad for the president, but also, a fundamental recognition that his approach minimizing this as recently as tuesday night, mocking his opponent in the presidential election, joe biden, for wearing a mask, making fun of him for trying to take care of himself. i think that period is over. and we'll see. i think financial markets will

tell us in a short while what the international reaction is likely to be, if the markets really tank, we'll see knock-on consequences. i'm remembering when boris johnson, the british prime minister, was hospitalized with a very serious case of covid. i believe he was on a ventilator. it seemed it was touch and go for a while there. people in britain, as i remember, watched and waited with a sense of genuine anxiety as their leader, newly elected, went through this difficult disease. so i think, again, two things will be at war in the next days. a sense of sympathy for the president that anybody would feel toward the leader of a country who is ill. against a recognition that his approach of denial has been shown dramatically devastatingly now to be inappropriate. >> yeah, and i think that it's

going to be important that there is a funnel of correct information that gets to the press and to the american people. the fact that there was a white house press briefing that did not disclose the hope hicks angle of this story, there fact that she had tested positive and she had been exposed to many members of the administration and the president himself shows that there's a lack of transparency to say the least. we're going to need to hear from, is it medical officials from walter reed, from the cdc? we need some guidance on understanding what exactly is going on in this presidency as it pertains to who is exposed to covid. and exactly what the president's condition is. because right now, we're basing it on his tweets. jon meacham, put this incredible moment in history, if you could frame it out for us, put this moment in history in context. we are weeks away from the

presidential election. >> there is a very checkered history of american presidents even in the best of times sharing accurate medical information with the public. it's just -- it's far more the exception to have that happen than the rule. >> but this is a pandemic. >> sorry? >> this is a pandemic. this is a highly contagious virus. so it's one thing if presidents are like, you know, trying to make sure they seem strong and maybe, you know, give or take a few pounds on their weight. this is a highly contagious, deadly pandemic. >> well, it is, but jon, as you say, even under the best of circumstances, presidents, and of course the most dramatic example you were about to point

out, woodrow wilson for the last year of his presidency, even kept his own vice president in the dark about the fact that he was in terrible shape. >> yeah. >> he was debilitated. he had a stroke. they lied about it. no, it's terrible. and mika, look, i'm with you. i just -- there's no evidence over the last five years of public life and three years of the presidency that anybody close to the president is remotely with you. and so what i was going to say is, in the best of times, presidents don't -- tend not to level with us. it's a bipartisan point. they don't like admitting weakness, et cetera, et cetera. it's had a deleterious effect on the life of the nation, unquestionably. we need transparency. we need a flow of accurate information. but is there anything in your experience in our national

experience over the last several years with this administration that suggests that's what we're about to get? and the answer to that rhetorical question is no. that does not mean any of us wish the president and the first lady ill. it does not mean that we are being reflexively partisan. it does not mean we're trying to weaponize a terrible diagnosis. but it does mean that the essence of democratic, lower case "d" survival, has to be an engagement with facts and truth. we cannot continue as a nation to engage in wishful thinking and reflexible tribalism. and this is unfolding in a 30-day window where we're facing one of the starkest choices we have faced since the civil war. if not the starkest since the civil war. and so i think that we're going to spend the next days hopefully

getting, seeking the information that we need for the country to make an informed decision. but i think all of us, i think members of congress, i think voters, i hope the people who are close to the president, will see that there is a virtue in being straightforward about this. >> as we have been talking here, another negative test has been announced. treasury secretary steve mnuchin just this morning has tested negative for covid-19. vice president pence, the second lady, also secretary of state pompeo, all this morning announcing negative tests. let's brynn in the dean of the brown university school of public health, dr. sha, good morning. you were on the air last night on msnbc as the hope hicks news broke. a lot has happened since then. what's your reaction to this news, and also as a public health expert, what should be happening around the president right now in terms of contact

tracing? >> good morning. and thank you for having me on. so it's obviously heavy news for the country. our national leader is infected. and we obviously, first and foremost, wish him and his wife, the first lady, well. in terms of what to do, there is a very large task in front of us. i believe that the president probably was infected somewhere between three and five days ago. it's possible that it was from ms. hicks but they could have had a common source. but anybody they have been around in the last few days needs to be identified. anybody around ms. hicks in the last three days, the president in the last couple days, needs to be quarantined, and there has to be a very massive contact tracing and testing effort to identify and isolate anyone who is infected. this is going to be a lot of work and end up involving a lot of senior people in u.s. government and it's going to be complicated, but i hope that the white house and the medical team is ready to do it. >> what's your expectation of

what happens from this moment forward for the president himself? we can talk about all the ripple effects, but for him personally, how will he be treated? how should he be quarantined? what does that look like for him? >> he needs to be isolated as anybody who is infected with the virus would be. and then i don't know the details of what's happening with him, if he's asymptomatic versus if he's developing symptoms. we're developing some therapies for people early in the disease course such as antibodies that have not been given full approval. if i were his physician, i would track how he's doing and we're going to all hope that he doesn't develop any symptoms, but the key point here is that it can take many days to develop symptoms, and it can take many more days to get really sick. we're going to be watching this closely, i think, for the next five to ten days, maybe longer. >> thank you very much for being with us. david ignatius, we talked about this briefly before, but again,

we obviously, as a country, face many threats daily. i'm curious what, if the president is staying in bed, is recovering and not actively working, what does the foreign policy -- what should our foreign policy apparatus do? what does that look like in situations like this? >> joe, the basic machinery runs, i want to say, on autopilot. obviously, a lot of effort in directing it, but our military around the globe in constant communication through satellite connections, combatant commands that look at every area of crisis, our intelligence agencies are unique in the

world. there are simply nothing like the american spread of sensors, collision technolo collection technology, that never stopped and it won't now. so all those fundamentals of our strength continue. sometimes president trump has seemed almost to want to disrupt them, resent them, but he has not succeeded, and they're still there. it's interesting to me that secretary of state mike pompeo has been more aggressive recently in some policies that initially the president probably was a little bit skeptical about. mike pompeo has gotten very concerned about turkey, and turkey's expansionist disruptive policies in the middle east, a war going on between armenia and azerbaij azerbaijan. pompeo has taken a more forward leaning position. he was just in greece doing interesting diplomacy with greece. yesterday, the united states, russia, and france jointly moved

in a diplomatic effort to stop the war between armenia and azerbaijan. that's a different thing for the u.s. to be working so closely with russia. i think people shouldn't worry that suddenly with trump gone our national security machinery stops working. it doesn't -- it's not built that way, and that won't happen. there is a question that i would ask. this is a president who just, you know f a day goes by where he hasn't tweeted, intervened, done something, seems to get upset. and will his doctors -- will his good sense say, you have to get over this disease. you have to stop trying to run the world by twitter. and so i would keep an eye on that. if he's tweeting a lot, you would say boy, that's not what he needs to be doing right now. he needs to be getting well. so he's got a campaign to finish among other things. >> all right, david ignatius, greatly appreciate you being with us. and yes, let's hope the

president rests and recovers. it is interesting, willie, that if you read bob woodward's book, what you find often with our foreign policy apparatus at least over the first three and a half years of the trump presidency, you have people who are operating and working their agencies, trying to do their best to not have their work disrupted by a tweet or by an angry call from the white house. so perhaps the foreign policy apparatus is in pretty good position right now because they have -- it's ironic, but because there hasn't been a good interagency process in this administration, they have had to learn to operate the state department and other agencies, the intelligence agencies, on their own without a lot of

interference from the white house. >> it's something you hope they would never have to do, but you're right, they have been doing it that way and perhaps it will serve them well here. zeke emanuel, there's no good news on a morning where the president of the united states has contracted a virus that has the potential to be deadly, but he has signaled again and again, as has this administration, that mask wearing isn't important. he said it again on stage with joe biden the other day. they had packed rallies without masks. they don't observe social distancing. is there a chance as we look for some silver lining today that the dead seriousness of what's happening this morning may grab the attention of a larger swath of the country and say, oh, it got president trump. it could get any of us. maybe we will start to wear masks. maybe we will observe social distancing? >> yes, i think you're 100% right. i think the communication here first is that anyone can get it, including someone where everyone around him is tested daily.

there is that window where you're testing negative and yet you're contagious, and you may not have symptoms. so i do think that's a very vital message, and the second vital message is, wearing a mask, staying six feet away from people, and doing hand hygiene those things we know reduce the risk of getting infected, and we know those are going to be important. hopefully the country, especially the president's supporters who have mocked people who wear masks, mocked people who stay six feet away, will take this to heart and begin to observe those things. that would be great for the country. maybe we'll see the number of cases drop down to as low as possible, so this would be, you know, if that public health message gets communicated, that would be a silver lining to this very, very grave situation. >> yeah, this is grave. we got breaking news now from the u.s. labor department. >> thank you, zeke. >> thanks, zeke. the u.s. economy added 661,000 jobs last month.

the unemployment rate dropped to 7.9% from 8.4% in august. let's bring back in nbc news senior business correspondent and msnbc anchor stephanie ru e ruhle. looking at these numbers, steph, there's a lot more going on in the employment part of the economy than these numbers. and when you look at the record rate of evictions and people moving and people losing part-time jobs or people being furloughed, can you put these numbers into context for us? >> we are moving in the right direction, right? so we are in recovery mode, but we're absolutely not in what the president calls a v-recovery meaning we were in a great place, then we dropped because of covid, and we shot back up. we're absolutely not there. we're in a "k" recovery where, yes, we're down half a percent in terms of unemployment, so we're moving in the right direction, but it's fragile and

fragments. we still have 12.6 million people out of work. we have major companies in the last week, thousands and thousands of people getting laid off at places like disney and goldman sachs. we know up to 50,000 airline workers could lose their jobs if there's not another carve-out package for that industry, so it's a positive in that we're moving in the right direction, but absolutely no one can say this is booming, this is great, this is superb. it's a step in the right direction, but a tender one. we're on a tightrope. >> and stephanie, the "wall street journal" is actually not reporting this as good news. their headline is, u.s. job growth slows in september. report on labor market six months into the pandemic and the final one before the presidential election, and this is their lead. job creation slowed to 661,000 with 7.9% unemployment last night, suggesting labor market improvements from the coronavirus downturn are moderating as employers confront

a prolonged period of uncertainty. and we have seen that time and again, stephanie, over the past week, with mass firings from some of america's most important institutions. >> institutions that are actually doing well financially, and it's important to remember, these jobs that came back aren't new jobs created. they were jobs lost and they're coming back on. think about the hospitality industry, joe. we don't have the restaurant bill passed. hundreds of thousands of mom and pop restaurants and retail stores out of business for good. and so the fact that you're seeing this slowdown is a reminder that even as some businesses go back online, a lot of them aren't. and some of those big companies that are announcing layoffs, when they say everyone is going to work from home for the next year, realize that means thousands and thousands of support staff at those companies are going to be out of work for good. >> all right, stephanie ruhle,

thank you so much. we look forward to hearing from you as you take over after we get off at 9:00, and let me go to jonathan lemire. jonathan, one of the frustrating things about the job reports we get every month, one of the frustrating things about the unemployment rate is it often doesn't give us the -- give us the accurate picture of what's really going on. i'm getting texts from several business people, many of whom actually support donald trump, who are actually saying that this is a negative jobs report. and that they had expected those numbers to actually be far more positive. are you aware of what they may be talking about? can you add some insight into these numbers? >> sure. expectations, joe, were for another like 200,000 jobs to be added beyond what were. i think there is real signs here

that the recovery is slowing, which is worrisome in itself, of course, but let's also put it in the political context. it raises questions as to why there wasn't another economic stimulus package done by congress and the white house in the previous weeks. when there were first signs of things getting sluggish. one that not only would have benefitted americans but potentially boosted the political chances of the president and the parties putting this together. there are talks now, of course, under way again, but very far apart for relief, but this raises questions why it wasn't done previously, and also, this is the last jobs report that's going to be released before the election. the election is november 3rd on a tuesday. it will be just a few days later on the 7th, i believe, the friday when the next one will be out. the first friday of november. so therefore, there won't be a chance, if there perhaps even is an uptick again tr, for the president to be able to claim that, to suggest it's part of

his "v" shaped recovery, which he has banked so heavily on as part of his re-election bid, trying to make the case the pandemic was under control and the economy was bouncing back. and in the last 12 or so hours, we have seen further signs the economy has slowed down and the president himself and his wife have contracted covid-19. >> and willie, more reports here. another business person texting me, saying this was 200,000 jobs below what wall street was expecting, what financiers were expecting, what world markets were expecting, and a real concern that this actually does not bode well for the economy moving into the next six months. also, jennifer jacobs just reporting that kayleigh mcenany first learned hope hicks had tested positive from a senior white house aide shortly before the news broke. multiple sources tell me only a

very, very small circle knew. even some in trump's most trusted -- of trump's most trusted advisers were kept in the dark about hicks' illness, but the press secretary was not -- was not one of them. she found out shortly before the news broke. and again, coming back to this jobs report, causing an awful lot of concern on wall street. >> there's no question about it, joe. i mean, in fact, what i'm hearing, not that this is even a decent jobs report, one person told me this is a terrible jobs report. and here's why. the country lost 22.2 jobs -- 22.2 million jobs in march and april. and it began to add jobs over the course of the summer. adding 2.5 million in may, 4.1 million in june, 1.5 million in

august. it started to climb out of the hole in the summer. and now has been left at a standstill, frankly. 661,000 jobs is nice and great for all those people, but in terms of a trend, it's not what economists were looking for here. you still have about 11 million of those lost jobs that have not returned. so this is not objectively from economists i'm hearing from, this is not a good jobs report. jonathan lemire, to go back to joe's point about kayleigh mcenany, i'm hearing the same thing. i haven't nailed it down yet, but that she may not have known about hope hicks' positive test when she went into the briefing room, which is a problem unto itself, that no one told the press secretary about that and allowed her to go out there without a mask and have an extended briefing. but certainly, everyone in the white house knew that hope hicks by yesterday morning was displaying symptoms. and that kayleigh mcenany had spent time around hope hicks over the last several days. >> all of that is exactly right,

willie. the white house has been sending out, to no one's surprise, conflicting information on this, and that a number of outlets including "the new york times," suggested that kayleigh mcenany had been told about the briefing -- the test result before the briefing. now there are reports suggesting she was notified afterwards, but what is without dispute is she knew that hope hicks on that flight back from minnesota wednesday night was exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus and had to be isolated on the plane. when she exited the plane from the back steps, landing back at joint base andrews, she had put a mask back on which she had not been wearing for most of the day. certainly, the press secretary before that briefing, which was a very contentious briefing, knew that hope hicks had signs consistent with symptoms, consistent with the coronavirus. and that she had had lengthy exposure with hope hicks, and yet still had this briefing yesterday. and this underscores the point that we're trying to make earlier, willie, the idea of now in particular, though obviously reporters will be digging for

information, we are also all, of course, relying at least to some extent on the white house for updates, particularly something so sensitive as the president's health, which is kept in the tightest circle. there's going to be some information that is only going to inherently be known by the president, his doctor, and perhaps one or two senior aides, and now, with some reports that the president may not have been feeling well the last day or so, that his window of exposure potentially dates back to the weekend, it's vitally important that the white house be transparent here in terms of not just how he's feeling but also in terms of their contact tracing efforts. not just as a political issue a month from the election but as a national security issue. the whole world is watching. >> and the finance times reporting on the jobs report as we go back to that story. said that the jobs report this month, mika and willie, highlighted the slowdown in the recovery of america's labor

market in the final stretch of the presidential election. the "wall street journal," the "financial times" and other financial outlets concerned at the slowdown of the job market, mika. >> well, and as we move ahead, we've got to figure out exactly how we're going to be getting information from this white house, because this is about the health of the presidency. and of potentially even the campaign, both campaigns. the president having the coronavirus and his first lady as well. and the fact that the news that hope hicks was isolating even before she knew she had it, didn't get to the media, didn't get announced. look what happens in companies. look what goes on in organizations and in families. if someone gets the coronavirus, immediately everybody is told, people are put in quarantine, people who have put in contact are given as much information as they can have so that they can

protect themselves and their family. so i think there's not just an issue moving forward of the president having the virus, but it's what happened in the past week and who wasn't told about this. >> well, and as we know, mika and willie, since the beginning of this crisis, the president has gotten the information he's needed and he's decided to not be transparent, and he's in fact decided to keep that information from the american people. the president was told in january by his trade representative that 500,000 americans could die from this. he was told by his national security adviser -- >> and joe biden wrote an op-ed. >> he was told by his national security adviser in january that this was going to be the greatest threat to his presidency, the greatest crisis that his presidency faced. this was the same time joe biden was saying that the president

needed to make sure that he let doctors and scientists determine the path that was taken forward. so willie, as jon meacham said, even in the best of circumstances, even in the best of times, the health of the president, of any president, is not often transparentally told to the press. but there are real challenges here, willie, because actually our national security, the functioning of our government is going to depend on transparency in this age of covid, and in this unprecedented crisis in our lifetime. >> yeah, we need transparency, but the sad truth is we haven't had it for four years in this administration, so we should not assume we're going to have it now. and operate accordingly. >> all right. so coming up, we're going to talk with jonathan lemire. he has some news to talk to us about in terms of a potential

vaccine. we'll be right back, covering the breaking news. the president and the first lady testing positive for covid-19. if i'm your president, on day one we'll implement the national strategy

i've been laying out since march. we'll develop and deploy rapid tests with results available immediately. we'll make the medical supplies and protective equipment that our country needs. we'll make them here in america. we'll have a national mandate to wear a mask, not as a burden, but as a patriotic duty to protect one another. in short, we'll do what we should have done from the very beginning. our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. he's failed to protect america. and my fellow americans, that is unforgivable. as president, i'll make you a promise. i'll protect america. i will defend us from every attack seen and unseen, always without exception, every time. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

every time. - with spray moppingrk vacmop to lock away debrisuction and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one disposable pad. your happy place. find your breaking point.

then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c.

welcome back. we continue to follow the breaking news that president trump and his wife melania have tested positive for covid-19. presidential candidate joe biden has put out a statement on twitter. jill and i send our thoughts to president trump and first lady melania trump for a swift recovery. we will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family. so we want to play for you comments about the vaccine that vice president mike pence made on the campaign trail in iowa yesterday. and president trump made in pretaped remarks streamed into the al smith memorial foundation dinner. just hours before announcing he

had tested positive for the virus. >> i'm proud to report to you that with american innovation, our dedicated researchers, we believe are literally just weeks away from the first coronavirus vaccine for the american people, and we'll have tens of millions of doses available the moment it's approved. >> we are on track to develop and distribute a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe substantially before. and i just want to say that the end of the pandemic is in sight, and next year will be one of the greatest years in the history of our country. >> those are recorded remarks from president trump just hours before, again, he announced his own diagnosis of covid-19. jonathan lemire, you've got new reporting on what the head of pfizer, one of the drugmakers racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine said about the timeline. we've heard from president trump and heard again yesterday from vice president pence about a

vaccine being just weeks away as they say. >> pfizer, as you say willie is one of the leading companies developing a vaccine. considered to be pretty far along in the process. but yesterday we obtained a memo from the ceo of pfizer to staff yesterday afternoon in which he said he was deeply disappointed that the vaccine had become such a political football during the debate two nights prior between trump and biden and that he vowed to staff and shareholders that their efforts to develop a vaccine would not be influenced by any sort of political pressure. he didn't mention the president by name at that point but certainly we know that the president has offered very accelerated time tables about the vaccine. and there's enormous pressure being exerted from the white house on these drug companies to have some sort of vaccine ready to go or at least to be able to be announced prior to election

day. pfizer, of kouscourse, is sayin they're going to -- they will in fact, stick to the science and not bow to any sort of campaign from the white house or anywhere else. it should be noted, of course, willie, that now in light of the president's diagnosis here, the vaccine takes on that much more heightened importance as the campaign is once again centered on the coronavirus pandemic, despite the president's efforts to change the subject. this is going to be the definitive story line between now and november 3rd. and this is a white house that has been, for a while now, banking on a vaccine announcement as its october surprise. this would be a good news story for them as voters head to the polls. well, of kouscourse, we know vo are voting early and we've probably already had our october surprise in terms of the president's diagnosis of covid-19 in the wee hours this morning. >> okay. maggie haberman of "the new york

times" just tweeted this. trump is said to have minor symptoms. he was lethargic at the bedminster fundraiser per an attendee. as of last night, officials were discussing treatment options as well as options for addressing the nation. also reading a piece from the daily beast, vickie ward talking about some impromptu photo ops he was taking with people, his trip to bedminster. he did a roundtable and reportedly delivered a droplet-spraying speech. he was interacting with people with knowledge that he was exposed. >> david ignatius, if that, in fact, bears out to be the case, which we've been receiving reports from jonathan lemire all morning that the president, obviously, knew about hope hicks, knew she was positive. still went up to this fundraiser and still was in close quarters with many of his supporters even

after knowing this. it really does show a recklessness, not just politically but also personally. >> joe, he had other people's health in his hands as it were. and i think anybody who goes over these facts would ask, was the president behaving irresponsibly? he has tried to carry himself as if he's a kind of superman that doesn't wear a mask, you know, implies at every stop, it's only the weak people who are worried about this. it's going to go away. it's not that big a deal. and now he's been brought low by it. you can try to manage and manipulate the news but you know what? you can't manage the virus. the virus ended up being stronger than all these efforts to minimize it and say it was going away and here it is. so i think that really does shape the way all of us are

going to think about the remaining days of the campaign. it was said earlier, this is the october surprise. it is. this is the black swan that descends. you couldn't have imagined this, really, and here it is. i think it's going to change how president trump conducts himself. manage he was on his way to wisconsin, a state that's been really hard hit by covid in recent weeks and do a series of rallies in the places where the outbreak was worst. green bay, lacrosse. as we sneezed yesterday, that was the news. nobody from the white house was saying, wait a minute, as they looked internally to what was happening to their own people. so these things are going to be rightly at the center of people's minds. republicans, democrats, independents, as they think about what is now, as we've said, again, the big issue of campaign 2020, which is the

pandemic. >> jonathan lemire, tuesday night's debate in cleveland has become a real area of concern. we're hearing anyone, including joe biden and dr. biden who was there with the biden campaign that night will be tested this morning immediately. i also just want to point to some reporting from our nbc news embed, campaign embed with the biden campaign, maya sotomayor who wrote i witnessed a cleveland clinic doctor remind trump's guests to wear a mask at the debate, even offering them surgical ones on the off chance they didn't have one. none of them put on a mask. the doctor looked frustrated, prompting a staffer to say, quote, that's all you can do. so tuesday night will be a big night for a lot of people as we look at what happened here. how it happened and who else may have contracted this virus. what other questions will you be looking to answer today as we move through this? >> there are so many questions, willie. first, how will the white house communicate to the american people and to those around the

world watching that it is indeed still a functioning government? how will they update and in trustworthy fashion how the president's feeling. what his condition is like. how will the campaign look in the days and weeks ahead. will there be more debates beyond that one tuesday night in cleveland, and a final question would be, how would protocols change perhaps at the white house itself because, according to our colleagues who are already in the building this morning, they are seeing a number of white house staffers also go in for coronavirus testing. just like those who had been at the debate. those who have had exposure to president trump or hope hicks. but a number of west wing staffers this very morning, the night after president trump's diagnosis, are walking around the west wing and not wearing masks. >> all right. we'll leave it there. we have a lot of questions. we're hoping for answers today. need transparency at this time of crisis. that does it for us this

morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. we have to stay with this breaking news this morning as president trump and first lady melania trump have both tested positive for coronavirus. around 1:00 a.m. this morning, the president himself making the announcement by tweeting, quote, we will begin our quarantine process immediately and get through this together. white house physician dr. sean conley released a letter saying both were well. he did not indicate if either of them had symptoms. the most immediate impact of this appears to be the that president trump will have to withdraw from the campaign trail at least temporarily just 32 days before the election. that alone is huge. but the implications go far beyond this political campaign. first and foremost, we're talking about a 74-year-old man who is overweight. one of the kinds of people whose life is most at risk from this disease. we have not seen the