White House: Melania Trump didn't visit husband to avoid exposing Secret Service and medical staff to COVID-19

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

published 5 October 2020

Doctors and infectious disease experts were highly critical of President Trump's decision to get driven in a hermetically sealed SUV around Walter Reed Medical Center to wave to supporters while he is contagious with COVID-19, endangering his Secret Service detail, photographed wearing the wrong type of personal protective equipment. The Secret Service has noticed.

The White House defended what spokesman Judd Deere called Trump's "short, last-minute motorcade ride to wave to his supporters outside." Deere told Axios' Alayna Treene, the White House pool reporter on duty, that “appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it, including PPE. The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.” Deere did not, Treene note, "answer additional questions, such as whether the drive-by happened at the president’s request."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.