I continue to hear pundits and news folks making the point that the Trump Family was not masked at the debate on Tuesday, but that’s not true.
Melania did wear a mask while sitting next to Ivanka, and interestingly, she was the only Trump wearing one.
Melania removed the mask when she walked away from the younger Trumps to move up on stage, near Joe on her way to stand with Donald.
Chris Wallace reported that the Trump entourage arrived “too late” on Tuesday to take Covid Tests. That seems odd since the debate took place at the Cleveland Clinic. According to a BusinessInsider article,
"For them to get tested, there wouldn't have been enough time to have the test and have the debate at 9:00 that night," he said. "They didn't show up until 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in the afternoon. There was an honor system when it came to the people that came into the hall from the two campaigns."
Even at 5:00 in the evening, it would seem that there would have been ample time for the Rapid Test. Furthermore, given the venue, even at the latest arrival time of 5:00, there would have been 4 hours for possibly even doing the longer test. However, going back to the Rapid Test, why didn’t President Trump insist on having everyone tested using the Rapid Test, like he usually does?
Why was the Honor System followed for the Debate?
With the number of people at the Supreme Court Nominee Rose Garden event on Saturday who have turned up positive, it’s reasonable to think that this may have been the day when both Melania and Donald were exposed. It’s also reasonable that both could have had enough viral load by Tuesday, 3 days into the course of their infection. If Trump gets tested on a daily basis as he claims, he could have known on Tuesday.
Trump is getting some criticism for possibly knowing he was positive and still going on the fundraiser on Wednesday, but I would like more journalistic investigation into nailing down this question:
Did Donald Trump know he was positive for Covid when he went to the Presidential Debate on Tuesday?