“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”, Donald Trump said, in a tweet confirming what many long thought was inevitable.
Trump’s positive test came hours after news that Hope Hicks was infected. Hicks flew on Air Force One to both the debate in Cleveland on Tuesday and to Minnesota, where Trump held a rally on Wednesday.
“Rest assured I expect the president to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, and I will keep you updated on any future developments”, Sean Conley, White House physician, promised.
Risk assets were not amused. US equity futures fell sharply on the news, which comes after Democrats passed their $2.2 trillion virus stimulus bill in the House on Thursday evening.
Although Nancy Pelosi was keen to emphasize that the door isn’t shut to a stimulus deal with Steve Mnuchin, the passage of the slimmed down HEROES Act was confirmation that the sides remained too far apart to make a deal likely. And that’s to say nothing of Mitch McConnell, who is reluctant to countenance anything with a price tag higher than the ~$650 billion “targeted” package the Senate considered last month.
Trump’s support would have been critical to cajoling McConnell and Senate GOPers. In essence, the president would have needed to publicly come out in favor of a compromise stimulus deal to put pressure on recalcitrant Senate Republicans. Obviously, the president won’t be doing anything in “public” for at least a week, and perhaps longer than that.
Already trailing in the polls, Trump will now be forced to cancel rallies, including events in Wisconsin on Saturday and in Arizona on Monday. Some have suggested this could even affect Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vacant Supreme Court seat. It also calls into question the next debate, scheduled for October 15.
One explanation for the risk-off move that swept assets overnight Friday is simply that this is one more piece of evidence to support the view that a Biden victory is likely. “Risk is trading lower because the market is pricing the last bit of Biden tax hikes and anti-oil stand from Biden”, AxiCorp’s Stephen Innes said. “This is far from risk-off due to uncertainly but rather risk-off due to certainty”.
Others suggest that, given Trump’s age and the prospect that he becomes seriously ill, markets are nervous that he may be unable to discharge his duties (as though he were doing that effectively in the first place). “The market move is less about the election and more about the possibility that the US president might become incapacitated”, Bloomberg quotes David Stubbs, head of markets strategy at JPMorgan International Private Bank, as saying. “This would inject significant uncertainty into the policy and geopolitical outlook”.
Clearly, this adds to election ambiguity. It could prompt conspiracy theories on both sides, but especially among Trump’s more fervent base, who will almost surely suggest this was the work of “deep state” operatives or the like. Among fence voters (assuming there are any of those left) this could potentially push them towards Biden, as it’s yet more evidence that Trump’s notoriously nonchalant approach to the virus was foolhardy, and that even the purportedly ironclad steps The White House took to insulate the president were not, in fact, ironclad.
I’d be remiss not to at least suggest that, were Trump to get seriously ill, he could float delaying the election, while critics might say he should be taken off the ballot.
Trump joins Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro among world leaders to have contracted COVID-19. Boris’s experience was harrowing, while Bolsonaro, true to form, brushed the virus aside, going so far as to tacitly mock the pathogen on social media with a picture of himself flashing a thumbs up and holding a box of hydroxychloroquine.
“If Trump goes to the ICU, it is going to be a big problem”, one analyst in Singapore remarked Friday. “But if he is asymptomatic that volatility may get contained”.
“To say this could potentially be a big deal is an understatement. Not much more can be said here at this stage, other than to do what one always does when anyone catches COVID — wish them a rapid and full recovery”, Rabobank’s Michael Every said Friday, before noting the obvious, which is that “Trump is very much in the age and weight category that place him in the higher risk groups, health-wise, and the market and public talk will now be of little else”.
“Eight out of every 10 deaths attributed to [COVD-19] in the United States have been among those 65 and older”, The New York Times reminds you. “In private discussions, Trump has been fatalistic with associates when talking about whether he or others would get sick from the virus, describing it as essentially a roll of the dice”.
For her part, Melania said both she and her husband “are feeling good”. “I have postponed all upcoming engagements”, the first lady added. “Please be sure you are staying safe”. (Same to you, madam.)
Another issue for markets is that this will make it all but impossible for Trump to deflect attention from the epidemic and focus voters on Amy Coney Barrett. All anyone is going to care about for the next week (at least) are Trump quarantine updates.
One can obviously roll out any number of Trump quotables about COVID-19 to contrast with his having become infected. Of course, the Bob Woodward tapes made clear that whatever he said in public, the president knew the disease was serious. Now he’s about to fight it himself.
If he recovers, he may try to take a page out of the Bolsonaro playbook by using his own triumph over the virus as evidence that it isn’t so serious, but that probably won’t play well with many voters and could obviously backfire in spectacular fashion.
In any event, an already fraught domestic political backdrop just got immeasurably more indeterminate and one imagines you can expect a heavy volume of tweets from a man whose only companions will be his wife, his doctors, and his phone.
“You just breathe the air and that’s how [the coronavirus] is passed”, Trump told Woodward, during a cringeworthy call in early February. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one”.
It sure is.
POTUSMemoOct3
This is the least surprising news of the year.
Well good grief. We all needed more Trump drama. Everyday. I know people who are voting Biden just so they don’t have to hear the president’s name everyday. Yeesh.
Not that this doesn’t matter. A lot. But. Yeesh.
Things like this remind me of when back in 2000 then Governor and candidate for Senate, Mel Carnahan died in a small plane crash. His name could not be removed from the Democratic ticket and (still not sure how a campaign could have the power to do this) his wife was chosen to stand in his place. He was elected posthumously and she served two years in the Senate until a special election took place. It changed the dynamic of the race. Prior to the crash John Ashcroft (you remember him) led in the race fairly consistently. Afterward Carnahan name took the lead.
Yes. This adds more drama.
Yeesh.
There is an aspect which I think you need to take more account of. There is a real possibility of a ‘rallying round the President’ / sympathy effect. I know he is not a particularly sympathetic individual but neither is Boris Johnson. In March/April he was hospitalised with a serious case of Covid in March/April and required Critical Care. During this period his approval rating jumped 20 points, which took two months to fade. This was his most popular time as PM…
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/boris-johnson-approval-rating
I appreciate the thought, but there is no comparison between Trump and Boris Johnson when it comes to something like that. I know plenty of people in the UK who despise Boris, but to put it mildly, it’s an entirely different kind of aversion than that which many Americans feel towards Trump. This isn’t a 9/11 “rally around Bush” moment.
Indeed.
Schadenfreude is more likely.
Unthinkable with any other human, but maybe he thought all along that it might be ok if he catches it. Certainly explains his public ambivalence and dismissal of the thing.
I appreciate that the Americans who dislike Trump do so with passion (as those who support him do so passionately). My question is more those in the middle who could vote either way. How are they viewing this??? They are the ones who usually decide elections.
Yeah, I mean it’s a good question, don’t get me wrong. But I just… I mean, the things he has said about whole ethnic groups, especially the really unfortunate stretch where he was going after Ilhan and Rashida every, single day, and openly calling the former a terrorist sympathizer (he actually said that, if you recall)…. that kind of stuff is just so beyond the pale, that it makes it impossible for people to feel sorry for him. I guess the way I would put it is that while someone like a George W. was directly responsible for thousands of lost American lives (Iraq) and God only knows how many Iraqis and then all of the deaths from ISIS which of course grew out of the Iraq invasion, the notion (whether you buy it or not) that Trump is indirectly responsible (virus response) for hundreds of thousands of lost American lives combined with his public statements that border on being maniacally xenophobic (even as I personally think they are about 40% genuine xenophobia and 60% pandering to the base), leaves three-quarters (roughly) of Americans with the impression that this is a really, really “bad” guy — as in, a fundamentally dangerous, unstable person who, if given another four years, might set in motion something unthinkable. That, as opposed to “just” an unfit, goofy president who made a tragic military error (i.e., W.) or a scoundrel (Nixon), and so on, and so forth. Bottom line: I think there’s just this lingering angst among many Americans that Trump, whatever he was before becoming president, is morphing into an existential threat. Obviously, that does not mean that most of his detractors don’t wish him a speedy recovery. It just means that the sympathy vote is too much of an ask. In my opinion. But I’ve been wrong before (believe it or not). 🙂
Thanks for that reply. I hope you are correct – I am in no way a fan. It seems the betting market take the same view as you:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting_odds/2020_president/
As an aside, I still cannot decide if he is an opportunist egomaniac or actually believes the stuff he says.
Amid the welter of news, what we need is music. Just out today, an innovative take on an old Spanish lullaby as translated by Federico Garcia Lorca. Enjoy.
Nana de Sevilla · Carla Canales
Este galapaguito no tiene mare
No tiene mare, sÃ
No tiene mare, no
Lo parió una gitana, lo echó a la calle
Lo echó a la calle, sÃ
Lo echó a la calle, no
Este niño chiquito no tiene cuna
No tiene cuna, sÃ
No tiene cuna, no
Su padre es carpintero y le hará una
Y le hará una, sÃ
Y le hará una, no
Bush was less than brilliantly competent but Putin is evil, period. Poisoning your opponents with a state nerve toxin to deliberately take “credit”? And Trump’s support for evil regimes (who wish no good for the US) makes it incredulous to an outside Canadian that he is even being considered for president. Remember the “evil empire”? It’s a lot more evil under Putin than it ever was under Gorbachev.
A Trump death by Covid would, among other things, diffuse the Russia election influence, diffuse the Proud Boys possible violence and give Covid it’s proper importance in our society thereby saving more lives.
I believe the negative response in risk assets today has more to do with the vanishing prospects of a stimulus deal than with Trump’s potential incapacitation due to the virus. In a way this is an October surprise that won’t surprise anyone and will simply become another side distraction in our perennial clown show, unless the unthinkable happens and Herman Kaine summons his friend for a reunion in the great beyond. I would be lying if I say that a deadly outcome would be positive for risk assets in the short term, but that would not prevent me from celebrating such an ironic display of karma with a nice bottle of Scotch. Petty? Yes and not very nice of me, but I know in my heart similar thoughts and desires are common in the minds of many, thoughts and prayers to the Trumps…
I smell a big short by the Crybaby In Chief crowd.
Hope Hicks is about to be socially “bin Ladend” since she was featured in the headlines.
“You’re fired!”
One more wolf at Trumps door.
Air courier of experimental mAb drug from Lilly and/or Regenron on way to WH now, I’d speculate…
I thought the magic treatment was light and disinfectant injections
In my limited experience, I had the virus. While factoring in the Wall Street Journal reporting (which used to be good) the President may not have so mild a form as advertised.
Wall Street Journal said, “The president, who said early Friday morning that he had tested positive for the virus, has had what one person familiar with the situation described as coldlike symptoms.”
I had a mild form of the disease and was very tired for weeks. However I never had cold like symptoms. Which indicates to me that he may have a heavy infection of the lungs. Even with my mild form my lung capacity is now (6 months later) just recovering.
I hate what he has done to our country, but I wish him well in this most personal of battles.
You have flagged an important issue that may have many twists and turns in the coming weeks or months. Many individuals have extended recovery times, and it seems that some who recover have long term health issues. Based upon prior disclosures regarding Trump’s health, it is doubtful that a majority of Americans will believe they can trust whatever is said about the nature of his recovery. There will be doubts going into the election and beyond about his capacity. And we will probably soon see a flurry of articles about how the Constitution doesn’t quite take into account every scenario for a candidate who dies or is incapacitated before the election, after the election but before the electoral college vote, or after the electoral college vote but before the inauguration.
Due respect to all comments here on the impact of Covid19 and it’s inevitable spread through the Political establishment.. What I see here however is that Markets and the bizarre nature of the events of at least the last several years have so anesthetized all of us that probably only a lackadaisical reaction followed with a shrug of the collective shoulder is possible….sadly enough !!!!
Biden’s people, showing respect for a man who’s down, are in the process of removing negative adds about Trump’s handling of the Covid virus. I haven’t heard anything happening from Trump’s people in appreciation. (Nor do I expect to). salut gerardo. I think a lot of people have been praying to God for help for some time now and I’m left wondering if prayer works. In God we trust.