The American president has announced that he feels normal and will continue to perform all the duties of the head of state. Trump will not hand over powers to Mike Pens.
The press is already discussing election scenarios in the event of Trump’s illness and death. Then Pence will be president – before the very elections. The Supreme Court will have to decide whether to turn him from a candidate into a VP to a presidential candidate – even though the registration deadline is long overdue.
The first details of the travels of Hope Hicks, Trump’s media manager, who probably infected him with the coronavirus, appear. She was found to have the virus buccaneously a couple of hours before Trump’s test came back positive.
In recent days, Hicks has met with Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker. They are both age politicians – McConnell is 78 and Pelosi is 80. Consequently, they are both at risk.
Hicks has unwittingly put the entire American gerontocracy at risk. After all, if Pelosi and McConnell join Trump and go to isolation, the USA is waiting for a complete power paralysis. And this is on the eve of an election that promises to be the most contestable in 150 years.
The first polls that will be released after the debate and Trump’s quarantine are attracting interest. Biden’s media strategy will be important here. His political technologists will certainly try to play a card for the inadequacy of the response to the epidemic, which led to Trump’s infection itself.
True, Biden can never say what he would have done otherwise than Trump. He suggested some time ago that a national mask mandate should be introduced, but then he refused. And in February, Biden also called Trump’s measures to close the borders “xenophobic”.
One thing is clear: the presidential race in the USA is restarted for the second time in a month.