WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has tested positive for the coronavirus — making him the highest-ranking official to test positive so far.
That’s according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it by name. The White House confirmed that O’Brien has mild symptoms and “has been self-isolating and working from a secure location off site.”
Officials did not respond to questions about the last time the president and O’Brien had contact, but the White House insisted that, “There is no risk of exposure to the President or the Vice President” and that the “work of the National Security Council continues uninterrupted.”
Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Monday that he wasn’t sure when his national security adviser had tested positive and hadn’t “seen him lately,” but would be giving O’Brien a call. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow had said earlier that O’Brien’s daughter also has the virus, and that that is how officials think he was exposed.
O’Brien also recently returned from a trip to France, where he met with top European officials and was photographed standing close to others and not wearing a mask.
O’Brien is the highest-ranking White House official known to have contracted the virus and the first since May, when a personal valet to the president and the vice president’s press secretary tested positive for the virus that has now infected more than 4 million people nationwide. Numerous U.S. Secret Service agents and Trump campaign staffers have also tested positive, including national finance chair Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is the girlfriend of Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
Senior White House staff and anyone who comes into close contact with the president and vice president are tested for the virus daily, but mask-wearing remains lax across the White House complex.
Source: Associated Press
