Joe Biden still at risk after debating Trump at ‘peak of contagion’

For more than six months, Joe Biden’s team went to extraordinary lengths to keep their candidate safe, fastidiously following medical guidelines that enabled him to campaign while guarding him from a potentially deadly virus. Now, Biden is facing the prospect that Donald Trump might have posed the biggest covid risk to his health since the pandemic began. It could be days before the 77-year-old Biden will be in the clear, despite recent negative tests.

The virus can incubate for up to 14 days. Trump was quite likely infectious at last Tuesday’s debate, considering the severity of the symptoms on Friday, in which he necessitated oxygen before being transported to Walter Reed Military Medical Center. A person is at their peak infectiousness in the 48-hour period before they start showing symptoms.

If that timeline is correct, then Trump would actually be at the peak of contagion on Tuesday night. Democrats expressed considerable frustration at the series of events that thrust the ever-so-careful Biden into a risky, maskless environment, which ultimately ended up with several Trump staffers and supporters testing positive and Trump himself hospitalized. The irony is that if there is one person out of 330 million who should have the least amount of risk, it is the president of the United States and his inner circle, and they are executive-level superspreaders.

Ohio Representative Tim Ryan, who was inside the debate hall, had to undergo a covid test after learning Trump had tested positive.

During the evening debate, a slew of Trump family members broke guidelines set by the Cleveland Clinic, the academic medical center that hosted the debate, by refusing to wear masks inside the debate hall. It was a far cry from the carefully cultivated events Joe Biden had organized and attended for months. Among those inside the hall or who traveled with Trump that night who announced positive tests later in the week: former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, first lady Melania Trump, senior adviser Hope Hicks, and Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien.

By contrast, Biden and his team have been vigilant about wearing masks and adhere to the strictest of rules as he travels. There have been no covid infections on the Biden team so far. Media access has been greatly limited, with only pool reporters allowed to travel with Biden. If a flight is involved, the press always travels in a separate plane. At some events, circles are drawn to mark exactly where attendees can safely sit or stand.

On Friday, after the confirmation of Trump’s diagnosis, Biden continued with his travel plans to Michigan. But Biden canceled an indoor fundraiser. Biden’s team did not find out from Trump or the White House but from news reports. Asked whether Biden should be quarantining for 14 days, a Biden campaign aide said staff considered the situation and followed medical guidelines.

Joe Biden and Trump were never within what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers to be close contact, and Biden’s team is following CDC guidance.

Joe Biden tested negative twice and the traveling staff tested negative on Friday. Biden tested negative again Sunday, Biden’s campaign events are socially distanced and everyone is wearing a mask. Given all of those factors, Biden’s team is comfortable that he can continue to campaign safely. Overall, concerns within the Biden team that the candidate or other staff had been exposed have been blunted by the fact that the campaign has been so devoted to following protocols, including wearing masks inside the hall, and keeping distance from others.

On the night of the debate, the two candidates were standing more than 12 feet apart. Social-distancing guidelines call for at least 6 feet of space between individuals to avoid exposure to covid, but medical professionals recommend a greater distance of separation for individuals spending longer periods of time next to one another indoors. Delaware Senator Chris Coons said after Trump’s diagnosis he thought back to the debate and wondered whether Trump may have exposed Biden that night.

In a new statement on Sunday, the Cleveland Clinic said the candidates and those traveling with them were required to submit a negative result from a test taken within the prior 72 hours. Both campaigns adhered to the rule. The Biden campaign did not specify when he was tested but said it was within the 72-hour period allowed by the Cleveland guidelines.

Trump first tested positive for covid on Thursday through a rapid test, which was later confirmed through a PCR test.

Trump made the diagnosis public early Friday. The Trump campaign referred to the White House a question about whether Trump was tested on the day of the debate. A White House spokesman said Trump was tested “regularly” but would not say whether Trump was specifically tested the day of the debate. Some inside the debate hall, a facility shared with Case Western Reserve University, noted that Trump was sweating on stage, despite it being relatively cool in the room.

It was probably around 68 degrees, Trump was visibly sweating and looked unwell. Trump raised his voice at various points during the 90-minute session, increasing the likelihood of sending droplets into the air. Joe Biden would release the result of every covid test he takes. On Friday, Biden received a negative result. On Saturday, Biden had not taken a test that day.

The campaign has not yet released a result on Sunday. Medical professionals cautioned that Joe Biden is not yet out of the woods. The good news is that Biden is wearing a mask and following good public health measures. Age and political consequences, the physical consequences of Biden getting sick would be intolerable. On September 28th 2020, Biden had been aggressively preparing for the first presidential debate with mock sessions that featured a senior adviser playing the role of Trump as the president forwent formal preparation.

Though Joe Biden’s team believed the significance of the debate might be exaggerated, he had been consistently preparing to take on Trump.

Joe Biden’s campaign had been holding mock debate sessions featuring Bob Bauer, a senior adviser and former White House general counsel, playing the role of Trump. Bauer had not actually donned a Trump costume in line with Trump stand-ins from previous years, but he was representing Trump’s style and expected strategy. Trump would throw everything he can at Biden, bombarding him with insults and weird digressions.

It was an important moment because the direction of this election had been pretty stable for a long time and Joe Biden needed to shake it up. Trump and Biden were scheduled to meet on the debate stage for the first time at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. The 90-minute event moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace was the first of three scheduled presidential debates.

For some, the debates represented the most important moments in the campaign’s closing days, a rare opportunity for millions of voters to compare the candidates’ policies and personalities side-by-side on prime-time television. Trump had been trailing Joe Biden in the polls, a reality that gave Trump an urgent incentive to change the direction of the contest on national television if he could. Analysts did not expect the debates to fundamentally change the race no matter what happened, given voters’ daily struggles with the pandemic and the economy.

The analysts also pointed to high-profile debates in past elections thought to be game-changing moments at the time but that ultimately had little lasting effect.

Joe Biden would not take the fight to Trump if he could avoid it. But Biden was prepared to go out and make his case as to why he thought Trump had failed and why the answers he had would help the American people, the American economy, and made United States safer internationally. Biden did not expect Trump to articulate a detailed vision for a second term. Biden was advised to avoid direct confrontations and instead redirect the conversation to more familiar campaign themes of unity and issues that mattered most to voters: the economy, health care, and the pandemic.

Arguing over facts, litigating whether what Trump was saying was accurate, was not winning to Joe Biden. This was an opportunity to speak directly to the American people. Biden’s objective should be to speak directly to the American people, and not be pulled in by Trump. Trump had not been doing any formal preparation. Trump, instead, had maintained that the best preparation was doing his day job, particularly his frequent and often contentious interactions with reporters.

White House aides also scheduled an ABC town hall to expose Trump to real voter questions for the first time in preparation for the second debate. Some aides and allies were worried that Trump’s lack of formal preparation would lead him to fall into the same hubris trap as other incumbents in their first general election debate. President Barack Obama, for example, famously struggled in his first matchup against Mitt Romney in 2012.

But other Trump backers were confident that he was ready to handle any tough questions or pushback from Joe Biden.

Trump was keenly aware of the power and pitfalls of live television and was acutely mindful of the power of ‘moments’ to define how a debate was perceived and that he intended to make his share of them happened. Trump was also an avowed counterpuncher and would surely respond to any attacks by Joe Biden in kind. Biden must fashion a succinct, debate-stage version of his message, draw a straight line from Trump’s personal deficiencies to his handling of the pandemic, its economic fallout, the national reckoning on race, and then explain why his presidency would be different.

On September 20th 2020, Joe Biden was accused of hypocrisy after a 2016 op-ed emerged in which he slammed Republicans for holding up a Supreme Court appointment, stating that it is the constitutional duty of a president to nominate if a vacancy becomes available. Biden was surprised and saddened to hear Republican senators said they would no longer accept a nomination because it was an election year. Biden’s words resurfaced after he blasted Trump for moving to nominate a candidate to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Ginsburg.

Joe Biden claimed that the nomination should wait until after the election in 44 days. Trump hit back at Biden, calling on him to release his own list of potential Supreme Court picks and accusing him of being afraid to alienate voters by releasing the names ahead. Shortly after Ginsburg’s death as the political battle about her replacement began, Joe Biden tweeted his opposition to Trump attempting to push through a nominee, “The voters should pick a President, and that President should select a successor to Justice Ginsburg.”

In 2016, Joe Biden hit out at Republicans that the president has the constitutional duty to nominate, the Senate has the constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent.

It is written plainly in the Constitution that both presidents and senators swear an oath to uphold and defend. That was why Joe Biden was surprised and saddened to see Republican leaders tell Obama and himself that they would not even consider a Supreme Court nominee that year. No meetings, no hearings, no votes, nothing. It was an unprecedented act of obstruction and risked a stain on the legacy of all those complicit in carrying out this plan.

In another 2016 speech broadcast, Joe Biden made his position on moving forward with a nomination in an election year clear that he would go forward with a confirmation process as chairman, even a few months before a presidential election, if the nominee were chosen with the advice, and not merely the consent, of the Senate, just as the Constitution requires. At the time, Republican senators had refused to move forward with the vetting process for Obama’s nomination to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia’s death on February 13th 2016 opened up a vacancy to which Obama nominated Merrick Garland.

Garland was never confirmed and Trump’s pick Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the court. Joe Biden had previously said that if a vacancy opens before summer in an election year, he believed the president has the green light to pick nominees. In the last few weeks before voters head to the polls, however, Biden thought they should be held off. This has often been called the ‘Biden Rule’ after the then-Senator made a 1992 speech encouraging a Supreme Court vacancy to be pushed post-election.

After rumors surfaced in mid-June 2020 that a Justice was soon to retire, Joe Biden claimed it would create immense political acrimony to nominate too close to the election.

Despite Joe Biden and Democrats arguments, Trump claimed at a rally in North Carolina that there was still enough time to effectively vet a nominee in the 44 days left before the election. Trump also slammed Biden for refusing to release his own list of potential nominees, claiming that Biden did not want to run the risk of losing far-left voters if his list was too moderate and vice versa. Trump claimed that if he released a list of names too moderate, he would lose the entire East Coast and lose the election.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Joe Biden needed to release his list to help voters to make up their minds. Instead of telling the current president what to do, he needed to tell voters where he stood. Being transparent putting forward lists as to exactly not just what justices would look like but what their names would be is paramount importance to the American voters.

Joe Biden needed to answer those questions before telling Trump exactly how to move forward. He did not want to release any names until they had been properly vetted but he would chose an African American woman. Ginsburg’s death seemed certain to stoke enthusiasm in both political parties as the election could now be viewed as referendum on the high court’s decisions, including the future of abortion rights.

Democrats raised more than $71 million in the hours after Ginsburg’s death, indicating her passing had already galvanized the party’s base.

Typically, it takes several months to vet and hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee, and time is short before election. Key senators might be reluctant to cast votes so close to the election, even if Trump nominated. With a slim GOP majority, 53 seats in the 100-member chamber, Trump’s choice could afford to lose only a few. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell declared unequivocally in a statement that Trump’s nominee would receive a confirmation vote.

In 2016, McConnell refused to consider Obama’s nominee months before the election, eventually preventing a vote on Garland. McConnell did not specify the timing if a Trump nomination was made. But trying for confirmation in a session after the election, if Trump had lost to Joe Biden or Republicans had lost the Senate, would carry further political complications.

Democrats immediately denounced McConnell’s move as hypocritical, pointing out that he refused to call hearings for Garland 237 days before the 2016 election and the 2020 election was 44 days away. The average number of days to confirm a justice is 69, which would be after the election. But some Republicans quickly noted that Ginsburg was confirmed in just 42 days.