Consider This from NPR - The President Has Coronavirus. What Happens If He Gets Sicker

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

News broke overnight that President Trump and the first lady tested positive for the coronavirus. The White House says they have mild symptoms. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, calls the diagnosis "a nightmare." NPR's Rob Schmitz reports on reaction abroad. John Fortier spoke to NPR about what could happen if the president gets sicker. Fortier is the former executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission, a group set up in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.For more on this story, follow our NPR politics team on their podcast and listen to Up First Saturday morning for the latest.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.We're working on an upcoming episode about pandemic precautions, and we want to hear from you. Fill out the form on this page and we may follow up on your response. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, everybody. Hello, Duluth. Hello, Duluth. On Wednesday night, President Trump was in Minnesota for a rally. On stage, it was the usual. Really enjoyed last night's debate with Sleepy Joe. But offstage, Hope Hicks, one of the president's aides who traveled with him to the rally, didn't feel well. And we learned that not from the White House, but from a report by Bloomberg News. The report said Hicks isolated on the plane ride home and later tested positive for the coronavirus.

So she did test positive. I just heard about this. She tested positive for the coronavirus. So she did test positive. I just heard about this. She tested positive. The president confirmed the story on Thursday with Sean Hannity on Fox News. I just went out for a test. They just do it. It'll come back later, I guess. And the first lady also,

because we spend a lot of time with Hope and others. So we'll see what happens. And then, overnight, Good morning, breaking news. The president tests positive for the coronavirus. Came this news. Now today, the White House physician's office says the 74 year old president and the first lady are doing well. The president and the first lady tested positive. But it's unclear how long he will quarantine. So now, with all the president's in-person appearances on hold indefinitely, this positive test could completely upend the presidential campaign and raise real questions about what happens if the president gets really sick.

This is Consider This from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It is Friday, October 2nd. They don't just do guns. The Doerr family name has been attached to other causes. Their goal is to eliminate public education and to replace it with Christian schooling. The roots of the Doerr family on the No Compromise podcast from NPR. This is Consider This from NPR. Just so you know, we're recording this episode at 3 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, and we're going to cover what we know as of right now.

We'll start with this. More than 45,000 Americans tested positive for the virus on Thursday. Many of them will recover. But the fact that one of them was the president of the United States, Ashish Jha says that is a nightmare scenario. For a couple of reasons. First of all, the head of our nation, the head of the United States? Ashish Jha says that is a nightmare scenario. For a couple of reasons. First of all, the head of our nation, the head of our government, has been infected with a potentially deadly virus, and he is in a high-risk group. Jha is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

But also, he has been around a lot of people over the last five, seven days, and certainly in the last couple of days when he was likely infectious. The next steps, Jha says, will need to be a thorough contact tracing effort at the White House and many more people in quarantine. Anybody who was on the airplane with him, anybody who's been in the White House with him, anybody who was in close contact with him for any extended period of time needs to be identified and quarantined and probably tested. Of course, we see the president and the people around him close together without masks all the time. Like the presidential debate Tuesday night

when the president's family and staff sat in the audience without masks. Anybody who is in close proximity to the president should absolutely be wearing a mask. And that has not been happening. We don't know how he was infected. I don't want to blame anybody at this moment. But it's very distressing to see the president of the United States get infected from what is a disease that we know how to largely prevent spread of. President and first lady do have mild symptoms, the White House said Friday.

Serious symptoms can take five or 10 days to show up. We're going to hope that this goes smoothly, but I'm worried about the next week ahead. Also on Friday, Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence said they had tested negative. Joe Biden's campaign said he and Jill Biden tested negative. But we know the virus can incubate for more than a few days before it shows up in a test. So results for anyone who's been close to the president will be watched closely over the next few days.

Earlier Friday, Biden said he was praying for the president and his family and hopes they have a, quote, swift recovery. The reaction from some leaders around the world was a little different. NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from Berlin on the well wishes and the other comments. At a summit in Brussels, EU leaders reacted swiftly to the news, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesperson wishing the Trumps a speedy recovery, and European Council President Charles Michel tweeting that COVID-19 is a battle we all wage every day, no matter where we live. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March, wished the Trumps well. Obviously, I think we all want to send our best wishes to the president and the first lady. And I've done that this morning, as you can imagine. And I'm sure that they'll both stage a very strong recovery.

But other European politicians critical of President Trump's lax approach to the virus in the U.S. weren't as generous with their comments. French government spokesman Gabriel Tal said Trump's positive test is proof that the virus spares no one, including those who are the most skeptical about its reality and its gravity. Other politicians went further, seizing the opportunity to criticize and even mock Trump. European parliamentarian and former foreign minister of Poland, Radoslaw Sikorski, tweeted, Mr. President, I suggest you do not try to treat yourself with bleach, referring to Trump's query earlier in the year about injecting bleach to treat the virus.

Global media was similarly critical. Media outlets like Germany's ARD led their newscasts with the news, with German newspaper Der Spiegel leading with the headline The American Patient. In China, the editor of the Global Times, one of the country's largest tabloids, wrote that the president and first lady are paying the price for his gamble to downplay the pandemic, adding that this news shows how severe the pandemic really is in the U.S. Back in Germany, one of the top trending terms on Twitter is Schadenfreude, the German word for feeling pleasure from another's suffering. Germany and much of the EU is still reeling from billions of dollars worth of tariffs President Trump has imposed on a range of European products. And there are still hard feelings over President Trump's decision

to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord and from the World Health Organization, whose director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wished both President Trump and the First Lady a full and swift recovery. And here's Rob Schmitz in Berlin. So what would actually happen in the coming weeks if the President of the United States does not have a full and swift recovery? Like if he gets really sick? What would happen with the running of the country

and with the election? Look, there are some real questions both about a president having an illness, especially if it were to get worse, but also in terms of a presidential candidate. John Fortier is former executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission, which was set up after 9-11. He's an expert in situations like this. And he talked to my colleague, David Green. What sort of things are being discussed right now inside the White House? And were the president's health to deteriorate? I mean, you've written that there can be confusion, there can be chaos. I mean, take us inside that building. Well, first off, as a

president, the question would be, is the president at some point, does he feel that he isn't able to carry out the duties of the presidency for a time? And there's a pretty clear provision in the 25th Amendment where he can sign over the power of the presidency to the vice president, and then when recovered, take it back. And that's happened a few times in recent years, basically for elective surgeries. That would be pretty clear. I think, you know, what would be a little harder is if the president got sick enough that he wasn't able to make the determination. There's still a provision in the Constitution where you can have the vice president, a majority of the cabinet say it's time for the vice president to take over. And then in the most

contentious situation, we have heard about in other contexts that if the president disagreed with that, Congress might have to decide whether to keep the president on or to keep the vice president. So it could go further down the line, but that would be the more extreme version. Look, we also have the election. And if it really came to the point where the president had to withdraw, there's a very difficult procedure in trying to replace him at this time. Yeah. Who makes that decision? I mean, how determined? If it happened earlier, I think it's pretty clear the party could have just stepped in. And the party still has a role of selecting a new person. And that would be the party committee could elevate

Mike Pence to the presidency and pick someone else as vice president. But that's a relatively simple vote. We've actually done that once in the 70s with a vice presidential candidate being replaced, Tom Eagleton. But the question now that the ballots are out is much more difficult. Could the president's name be removed from the ballot? I think it would withdrawn, that those electors could still end up voting for the Republican ticket, whatever that is in December. I mean, this is obviously so, so speculative, as you said. I mean, these are extreme circumstances we're talking about. But I wonder, I mean, this is your line of work. Like, I wonder if you get people sometimes saying like, oh, why do you dedicate so much time to scenarios that might never happen? But I guess there's an argument that these are really important questions that you want answered. You have to plan for the worst and most chaotic scenarios.

You do. And I think we'd be better off with some better plans in place for a lot of these continuity scenarios. I mean, obviously, questions of national security might matter if we're not absolutely sure if the president is well. We had cases well before the 25th Amendment. Woodrow Wilson, who was essentially incapacitated for his last almost year and a half in the White House. And there was a real question as to who was really running the government. The vice president hadn't stepped in. And so, you know, there are these questions. We don't want uncertainty in times of trouble. John Fortier is former executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission.

For more on this story, follow our NPR politics team on their podcast and listen to Up First Saturday morning for the latest. You can find links to those shows in our episode notes. This is Consider This from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers.