is symptomatic. he described those symptoms as mild. first lady melania trump says her symptoms are mild as well. meadows said they expect more information to be made public today from the president's medical team. person familiar with the matter tells nbc news that everybody is in a panic inside the white house about their own health. and as you see, meadows spoke to reporters this morning. even though he's had close contact with the president due his age and his weight, president trump is part of a cohort that is more susceptible to serious illness. the implications of that fact just can't be ignored. there is a possibility the president could address the american people in some form today. he may -- may need to be a priority by the white house in some form today. right now there's also a scramble at the highest levels of our government to figure out how widespread the virus is and how many folks have gotten it, made it very clear they fully expect more people to test positive as the situation unfolds. we've seen quite a few already. we learned late yesterday that one of the president's closest adviser hope hicks contracted the virus. she was reportedly experiencing symptoms around the time of tuesday's debate. then we heard that rnc chairman mcdaniel tested positive. republican senator mike li who was at the white house a few days ago has disclosed he's tested positive. he met with judge amy coney barrett. he was at a committee markup without a mask. in the days leading up to his diagnosis, the president and his staff often without masks have been all over the place. they've been at a presidential debate, numerous white house meetings, at the capitol, a rally in minnesota, a fundraiser in new jersey, you get the picture. contact tracing over thousands of miles. a number of white house officials have tested negative, including vice president pence, chief of staff meadows, secretary of state pompeo, attorney general barr, jared kushner, ivanka trump, among others. it's important to note that health experts recommend a 14-day quarantine for anyone exposed to the virus, regardless of whether they test negative. we also know that you can test negative the first couple of days with the virus and then it sometimes takes three or four days before tests can pick up the virus. moments ago, the biden campaign disclosed that biden has also tested negative as well. they said kamala harris tested negative both yesterday and today. so joining me now outside the white house my nbc news colleague geoff bennett. and an msnbc contributor and then of course from a medical perspective the dean of brown university school of public health. geoff, let me start with you. the president supposedly was going to do some work today, participate on a call. it's our understanding it's the vice president ended up participating on that call. so we have not -- we've not seen or heard from the president yet this morning or this afternoon. will that change in some form? >> at the moment, it's not clear that it will. and you're right, the only event that remained on the president's schedule after announced his positive covid diagnosis was this phone call there are conference call that the white house build is having to do with vulnerable seniors in relation to covid-19, a group of which the president is now a part. but, our team is told that the president asked vice president mike pence to conduct that call on his behalf, no specific reason was given. but the collective reporting of our white house team right now is that the mood in and around the west wing is one of panic. people are concerned, people are worried about their own health, about their own potential covid status given the ways in which many white house officials had extended, prolonged contact to president trump and hope hicks. and president trump as you see right there so often doesn't wear a mask. and he's explained why and he's suggested that he existed, lived and worked in this secure bubble where everyone around him is tested and yet, as we now know, it yielded a false sense of security. there is also a sense among some white house officials telling members of our team that they think that the president needs to be seen publicly. if only if it's waving from a window or waving from a balcony, that that would help calm markets. and there's still scrutiny right now, i think this will continue for something that mark meadows, the white house chief of staff said earlier today, that was that the white house knew of hope hicks' positive coronavirus status as marine one was taking off yesterday for the president's million dollar fundraiser, his private fundraiser in bedminster, new jersey. obvious question there is if they knew that someone in close contact to president trump had a positive covid diagnosis, why did they go forward with that fundraiser, chuck? >> and, geoff, do they have any good explanation? i mean, they've exposed members of the press, they've exposed those folks that came into contact with the president there. i mean, is there suddenly a lack of confidence in these abbott tests? we know they're not as accurate as the nasal swab tests. >> yeah. look, there is no good explanation. as yamiche knows, we're both in and out of that white house day after day, white house officials play fast and loose with the same cdc recommendations that this administration is telling americans to follow. they don't wear masks, even though it is impossible, as you well know, chuck, to socially distance in the west wing. yes, that's one of the reasons why white house officials, members of the press, people who have to go into that building each day and this holds true for the capitol too, are concerned about their health. and rightly so. >>. >> yamiche, you area nawere nam checked there so i'll go to you next. have you talked to sources in the white house? are they aware that the credibility -- that the fact that they have a credibility problem with a big chunk of the country during a moment like this, are they aware they probably need to be even more transparent than what would be called for under normal circumstances? >> it's a good question, and we're not sure we know the answer to that. we know, of course, that the white house has to be aware that they are complicated relationship with the truth, to put it lightly, complicates the fact that there are americans who simply do not believe the information that comes out of the white house. there are people openly questioning when did the president know, how did he find out, how many people have this virus in the white house, why did they put people at risk when they knew that hope hicks had tested positive? why he would get on that plane? there are questions about whether or not the president -- why he didn't share that information with the biden campaign. i have sources in the biden campaign telling me that they understood and learned about this news when every other american in the middle of the night in this chaotic way. there are a lot of questions for this white house. it's tough in the is why presidents need to have credibility, because when the nation is in a pandemic and you need to trust information, you want to turn to the white house and say that is the information they're giving us and as a result we can report on it and feel as though it's the right thing and it's the truth. in this case, this white house has just not built up that credibility and the president downplaying this virus over and over again also complicates this because it upends his relationship with the virus in and of itself. he's saying that he can protect americans, but here as the most protected american in the country, he could not protect himself, his wife, or his workplace. >> mike, with the biden campaign, it took till about noon today that we got confirmation that the former vice president had tested negative. what is the -- what are the daily protocols that the former vice president goes through when it comes to this virus right now? >> yeah, chuck. well, first of all, just an update on his schedule. if he was on time in a normal campaign day he would be arriving right around this time to deliver remarks on the economy just across the street from where i'm standing. the press pool right now, chuck, is gathered near the former vice president's home. we do expect him to still travel here. now, in terms of his traditional protocols this is a campaign that has always believed that good health and safety protocols are also good politics. but even if they prove not to be, it's the responsible thing to do. and so what we've seen since the pandemic really affected this country is in march it shut down the campaign. the campaign sent everyone home from their headquarters, the former vice president didn't really leave his house to appear publicly until memorial day, you'll remember. anybody who came into contact with the former vice president at his home had to be tested. for months there was very limited footprint of staffers who were actually in his home with him. more recently the full staff has had access to rapid testing. the press pool that has been now traveling with the former vice president on a daily basis also has that daily testing in order to be part of that traveling pool. and one thing to note as well, chuck, the kinds of events that the former vice president has been doing, despite the mocker thatmockery that's been present from the trump campaign, have all been in compliance with the local and state ordinances that apply to the locations he's traveling to. that was to go to be the case with the socially distant event here in michigan today. they're always going to make sure that his health and safety is first and foremost. but this is also a campaign that believes he has the responsibility to set a good example when one is not being set by the occupant of the white house right now, chuck. >> right. very quick, mike, do we have any reason to believe this event will not happen? >> no, chuck. in fact, i think one of the mythology but significance of these unforeseen events, the october surprise, they test the campaign's ability to adapt to a crisis circumstance. the biden campaign has seen this as a crisis circumstance all year, so while he may not focus on the economy in his remarks here, he will still focus on something he has been focused on every day for most of this year, which is the pandemic. and so little change in terms of the campaign message, chuck. >> all right. doctor, i want to start -- let's just go with the best you can help us out with on how to street the president right now. mild symptoms. look, we don't know what that means, we don't know if, you know, how they're defining mild. but he's got some symptoms. how would you be treating the president right now? >> yeah, so it's early in the disease course and it being mild obviously we're going to hope and pray that it stays mild and he gets better. but it is -- the window for having severe symptoms getting very, very sick is still several days away. and so i think he's going to need very careful monitoring to make sure that he's not clinically getting worse. there are some therapies that are basically month clonal antibodies, something that are going on in clinical trials to see if they could be useful in a situation like this. i would have a conversation with him as well as others about whether that was worth trying. but we don't have that right now as an approved therapy in this situation. so i suspect that he will not be getting that. there are no other treatments that he'll be eligible for at this moment. again, if he were to get sicker -- >> when would you use -- >> -- taken to the hospital, then there are other treatments. >> when would you use remdesivir, for instance? >> the authorization of remdesivir is for hospitalizations in the early disease course. there's some evidence of giving it earlier is potentially useful, so i think that's a conversation. i don't think of remdesivir as some major game changer that he absolutely needs it. but, the other therapy dexamethasone is for much more advanced disease. we hope that the president will not need that. but obviously if he were to get much more ill, then that would be another therapeutic option. it's mostly supportive care at this moment. >> all right. so right now he is in hefs fi-- finds out he tests positive, he's got mild symptoms. we know there's a window where things can get worse if they're going to get worse. what is the -- what is that window where if it doesn't get worse you would say, okay, he may have a mild case and he'll be on the road to recovery? is it five days? is it six days? what is the window here that we're looking at for -- while we monitor the president's health? >> yeah, there's a lot of variation here, chuck. you know, so i think certainly it's sort of probably in that five to eight-day range. meaning, this weekend, early next week is not out of the woods. but let's say by mid to later part of next week he's convened to be feel well, maybe mild symptoms, i think we'll feel more confident that he will end up having mild disease. but right now we just don't know and i think all we can do is hope and pray that he ends up having a mild case of this disease. >>. >> geoff bennett, do we know if the vice president's schedule has been changed? are they going to pull him from the campaign trail until they know what kind of shape the president is in? >> that's a good question for -- which i don't really have a good answer, i'll be honest with you about that. >> okay, i get that. >> that's one of our targets is to find out the degree to which the vice president will be quarantined. because even though he and the first lady had a negative test today, that's a good indicator, it's kind of final indicator and of course he'll need to be tested day after day after day. so the degree to which they are going to change their schedule and stay off the trail, that we don't yet know. >> and, yamiche, did kalee macha indianan kayleigh prove the press this morning or not? >> she said she did not know the hope hicks diagnosis and as a result when she went before a reporter she did not have that information. but i should note that she has been called out for having misled the reporter. so this goes back to the credibility question. she is saying this. we are taking her words at face value. but she has been someone who has said things that were not true. i think one of the other big things that we've been talking about is the president, of course, is 74 years old, mild symptoms, what are does that mean? what does that look like? and do people trust -- the american people in particular, do they trust when this white house or kayleigh comes out and says i didn't know about hope hicks, the president is not doing well, he's having mild symptoms, do the american people believe this white house? that's a critical question and

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