Donald Trump's last chief of staff has claimed that the former US president had tested positive for COVID-19 just three days ahead of his debate with Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden in 2020.
Mark Meadows, who served as Trump's fourth chief of staff, made the shocking claim in his new memoir called 'The Chief's Chief,' according to media reports that accessed the book.
Explaining how ''Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there,'' Meadows said Trump was aware about the norm ''to test negative for the virus within 72 hours of the start time'' of the debate, which was held on September 29 last year.
Also read | Social media erupts as Trump gets featured on miniature Mount Rushmore
Yet after receiving confirmation that he had tested positive, Trump went ahead with the debate, potentially endangering several lives. He had called the novel coronavirus, which has claimed millions of lives worldwide, as a ''hoax.''
According to Meadows, ''I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. But I also didn’t want to alarm the public if there was nothing to worry about – which according to the new, much more accurate test, there was not.''
Also read | Donald Trump, banned on Twitter and FB, to launch his own social network
Since the positive test was done by an old kit, Trump suggested a new one be performed using the Binax system, hoping that it was a false positive. This proved beneficial as the second test came back negative.
Meadows has also provided the House of...
SOUTH LEBANON — Israeli and Lebanese senior officials on Thursday denied reports that the Israeli army had withdrawn part of its troops from the “buffer zone” in occupied southern Lebanon, followi...