White House Correspondents’ Association President Jon Karl has reported that an unnamed White House correspondent has a suspected case of COVID-19. Karl reported that the correspondent was at the White House multiple times from March 9-18, 2020. During that span, Donald Trump and Mike Pence met with correspondents in the James S. Brady briefing room three times.
“As we have said since this crisis began, our priority is ensuring that we can maintain a healthy pool to provide coverage of the president. To that end, the WHCA took the emergency step last month to issue a new, temporary seating chart,” the organization stated.
“Today, we are revising the temporary seating chart again to further implement social distancing in the press room, effective immediately,” the organization continued.
As recently as Thursday, Trump stated that the press was sitting too close to him during a briefing.
“You’re actually sitting too close,” he said.
“You should move. You should move immediately,” he added as he pointed at a reporter.
Both Donald Trump and Mike Pence have said that they have tested negative for the virus.
