Hes the president of the United States. As the virus spreads through the white house, Trumps Campaign and the senate. Three more people tested positive for the virus. Hope hicks testing positive. Kellyanne conway tweeted tonight i tested positive. Two gop senators on the Senate Judiciary committee have tested positive for covid. Seems to grow by the minute. Mounting questions about the safety of the president , the stability of the country and the race for the white house in this final month of voting. This is not a matter of politics. Its a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. I look forward to finishing up the campaign the way it was started. Re now, chief anchor george stephanopoulos. Good morning, and welcome to this week. What a week it has been. When we signed off last week, heres what we didnt know that President Trump had paid just 750 in income tax in 2016 and 2017. On the hook now for several hundred Million Dollars in debt come due in a second term. Tuesdays debate would be widely labeled the worst president ial debate ever with President Trump bearing most of the blame. That the rose garden ceremony celebrating judge Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the Supreme Court would turn out to be a super spreader for the coronavirus. As we come on the air this morning, at least eight of the attendees have tested positive for covid including, of course, First Lady Melania Trump and the president of the United States. And with President Trump now being treated at walter reed, the country is now facing a cascade of crises in a chaotic year. A personal Health Crisis for the president. Compounded by a credibility crisis for his white house during a public Health Crisis that has cost more than 209,000 americans their lives. All with one month to go in a president ial election unlike any weve seen before. Were going to try to make sense of it all this morning starting with our team of correspondents. John karl is at walter reed. The repetition of falsehoods, it the refusal to give straight answers has been a hallmark at the trump white house. It reached something of a peak yesterday. Reporter on one hand, it was a Welcome Development to see the white house doctor come out and brief reporters. But it was, frankly, maddening to see the medical team refuse to answer so many questions and to be spinning as if this were just another political briefing. Dr. Conley refused to answer basic questions such as how high is the president s temperature, he would not say. Has the president been on supplemental oxygen . As you saw, he wouldnt say. We later learned that, in fact, on friday, the president was on oxygen. Dr. Conley also bent over backwards to try to put a positive spin on things saying that the president had been fever free for 24 hours, that he, quote, is doing great. But minutes after that briefing ended yesterday, a person described as somebody familiar with the president s health briefed the press pool here and said, quote, the president s vitals over last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery. That starkly different assessment, multiple news organizations identified the person as none other than chief of staff mark meadows. Overnight, we learned that yet another person close to the president has tested positive for coronavirus. Nick luna, the president s personal aide. Somebody who travels with him virtually everywhere he goes. He has been tested positive for coronavirus. Perhaps the most reliable information throughout all of this actually came from the president himself with a fourminute video that he posted to twitter yesterday. And george, ive got to say, the esidened goo somebody going through all that he is going through right now. Okay. Let me bring in martha raddatz. We saw the military doctors behind commander sean conley yesterday. No doubt they are giving professional care. They also seem to be used as political props. Reporter they absolutely are, george. And these are medical doctors. They should not be spin doctors. Navy officers, not political appointees. So you saw dr. Conley and the others come out there and give that briefing with very little information. Kind of cute in ways saying he wasnt on oxygen today. That should not be happening. This is a prestigious position. They may not have training for anything like this, this urgent care of the president of the United States, but they have to stick to the facts. They are not, again, spin doctors. Ive traveled all over the world, ive been to north korea, remember last may when people thought kim jongun might be dead, its because people absolutely didnt believe the information they were getting. That happens in north korea. It should not happen here. So dr. Jen ashton, lets cut through the spin and focus on what the doctors are doing for the president. Lets talk about that rather than what everybody is saying. What are the various treatments theyve been giving the president , the hospitalization, the regeneron, the remdesivir, tell you about the course of treatment and potentially the president s condition . Well, the bigpicture view from the clinical treatment aspect is that the president is getting early and aggressive treatment for what has heretofore been described as mild covid19 disease. Hes being treated with both an immunotherapy, that antibody cocktail, by regeneron, which is under compassionate use authorization. And then antiviral therapy, remdesivir, which pretty much is the standard of care now in hospitalized patients. Both of which given very early in the course of disease indicating his medical team not taking any chances that this disease will or could progress, doing as much as they can. Obviously in medicine there are no guarantees regardless of how aggressive the treatment is. In terms of predictions here, george, i want to emphasize and be crystal clear, in medicine, you evaluate a patient hour by hour, day by day. We avoid at all costs making longterm prognosis, especially in a situation like this with a virus so new, so variable, so mysterious that has shown us time after time it can be unpredictable. Right. And the general question for a lot of people, as you look at the cases, you have first the attack of the virus, and then the immune system response which is why everybodys concerned about that seven to tenday period. Right. Seven to ten days. Lets be clear, its not 48 hours, seven to ten days, and then at the mysteriously 11day mark someones miraculously in the clear. You know, again, thats why we take things hour by hour and day by day. A lot of people asking about steroids here. That typically is not given early in the course of disease because that can actually worsen outcomes. But they are going to be on the lookout for complications of covid like clotting disorders anywhere in the body, theyre going to be monitoring kidney and liver function which can be affected by these medications and by covid itself. And then theyll be keeping a close eye for that secondary immune phase that can be so dangerous. Mary bruce is covering the campaigns. No one knows for sure yet what it will mean for the outcome. We know its has had an immediate effect on the campaigning. Reporter and on both campaigns, george. We have seen the president s campaign trying to maintain events. Without the president , much of this campaign has come to a screeching hat. While joe biden is still going full steam ahead, we have eping his campaign events. He is ha to tweak hi we have seen him tempering his usually sharp attacks against the president. Hes taken down much of his negative campaign ads. And he is, though, continuing to argue, of course, that this is a very severe virus, that he is the best leader who can tackle this. But he is in a tough position here. Joe biden has made this campaign a referendum on the president s handling of this pandemic. He has argued for months that the president doesnt take it seriously. So its hard to make that message while also being respectful of the president s diagnosis as he makes these overarching calls for unity. And of course, george, there are so many questions about what comes next with these debates. The next faceoff is set for just about ten days from now on the 15th. Right now, it is very hard to see how that still goes on as planned. Youre also our senior congressional correspondent. This could have a huge impact on the confirmation battle for judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Three republican senators, mary, have tested positive for covid. Three republican senators and two of them, senators lee and tillis, are on the critical judiciary committee. We saw them there at the celebrations at the white house for Amy Coney Barretts nomination. If they remain sidelined, it could effectively jeopardize and prevent Amy Coney Barrett from being confirmed. Republicans have no room for error here. Mitch mcconnell is very well aware of that. He has said that covid is the biggest threat to this confirmation. Now right now they are planning to go ahead with these hearings. Lindsey graham, the chairman of the committee, is adamant about that. Even if it means they have to break senate norms and do much of this virtually, democrats, of course, who have been eager to try and slow down this process are calling for everyone to hit the pause button here. And john karl, right now at least, the senate does not have the votes to confirm the justice. You have to vote in person in the senate. Reporter thats right. There is no remote voting in the senate. There is no proxy voting. As you know, you already have two senators who said they would not go along with the confirmation on the republican side. Ard add add three that cant be there because of selfisolating. The bottom line is Mitch Mcconnell at least at this moment does not have the votes to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed. He has to hope that those three senators recover and that no more senators, no more republican senators come down with covid19. And finally, martha raddatz, i wonder about the lingering impact of the country seeing marine one heading toward walter reed. That was such a moment, george. And we, of course, talked about that together when that happened. The country is going to remember that. And its great to see that the president looked so good in that video. But as jen ashton said, we dont know what happens next. We dont know when well see that helicopter bring President Trump back. Of course, he does not want to look weak. Thats part of this campaign, as well. Thats part of who donald trump is. He wants to look strong and macho. This is very difficult for him. This is very difficult for the country and for his supporters to see, as well. Okay. Thanks to our team of correspondents. Lets bring in Senior Adviser jason miller. Thank you for joining us this morning. Let me start with the question about your personal health. Five of the nine people who participated in the president s debate prep, including Chris Christie who works for abc, have tested positive for covid. Are you still negative . When was the last time you were tested . Yes, thank you for having me on this morning, george. I have tested negative. As has my entire family. Were very thankful for that. And that was on friday when i took my last test. So im continuing to social distance and wear a mask and be very careful and wash my hands and keep distance from folks, use hand sanitizer. So very thankful that i tested negative, as did Steven Miller and mayor giuliani. And for those who did test positive, namely President Trump, were hoping that he gets back on his feet in no time and seems to be doing well. You know, i did have the opportunity to speak with the president for about a half hour yesterday. Both myself and bill steppien, our campaign manager. The president sounded good. He said he was doing well. He was getting back on his feet. Cracking jokes and asking questions about the campaign and grilling us about when well have new tv ads to show him. Hes feeling good. He said a couple of important things i want to share with the American Public that are watching this morning. Number one, that were going to defeat this virus. President trump personally is going to defeat it. As a nation, were going to defeat it and get life back to normal. Get this vaccine. Also our campaign is going to defeat it. I think when President Trump gets out of the white house, excuse me, out of the gets back to the white house and back on the campaign trail, its going to be a slingshot taking us forward. He said something that was important, and thats to be careful. To make sure that folks are washing hands, using hand sanitizer, to make sure theyre wearing a mask if you cant socially distance. These are important things and reminders that President Trump told us. Thats good to hear the president saying that now. I mean, theres been real questions about whether hes been taking it seriously enough up until his diagnosis. We have a new poll out with ipsos that says 72 say the president didnt take the risk of getting covid seriously enough and didnt take appropriate precautions when it came to his personal health. What do you say . I disagree. I look at early action with closing the country and stopping foreign travelers from china and europe when it received criticism from the political left. Folks saying it was xenophobic, racist. Obviously shut down the country for two weeks and then for an additional month. Had to go and keep us safe. What that did was that flattened the curve. That allowed to start developing therapeutics. We started getting the vaccine developed. That we got the ventilators, 100,000 ventilators built. And george, i think theres a really important point here is that President Trump had to take this head on. He had to get out there as the leader, not just of the country but of the free world, and take this head on. This is a general in the fieldtype moment that he couldnt just stay upstairs, hidden in the lincoln bedroom or in the white house. He couldnt stay hidden in his basement, saying im going to shut down forever. People in this country, george, want to get life back to normal thats true. The president had to take it head on, but he didnt have to hold rallies where people did not social distance, did not wear masks. He didnt have to mock former Vice President joe biden for wearing a mask and reporters who wore a mask. He didnt have to continue to go to event after event without wearing a mask. But i would again id push back on that because President Trump is one of the most tested people in the entire country. Theres a lot that we still dont know about this virus. So let me give folks an example of as someone who spends a lot of time with the president the protocol and things i go through. If im going to be spending time with the president or other team members, first of all were tested. Beforehand. Theres about a full hour space from the time that were tested until we make sure were in the clear. We keep distance from the president at all times. The closest i get to the president is about eight feet, maybe six feet. Usually pretty solid distance back. A lot of times more like ten feet. And we make sure that any anyone has their temperature checked. People are washing hands, theyre using hand sanitizer. Even with all of these things in place, weve seen that where President Trump did contract covid, but hes one of the most safe people thats out there. And obviously if hes in a place where he cant socially distance, we have seen him wearing a mask. We have seen him encouraging people, whether on twitter or with email, whether from his own voice, saying be careful as youre out there. These are important things. Folks who come to our rallies, for example, their temperatures are all checked. Theyre given masks. Theyre urged to be careful, as well. Weve done that in the past. Were going to continue doing that as we go forward. You know, but more broadly, weve all seen the rallies without the masks, the rose garden event without the masks, the president s refused to wear a mask at the debate. The president seemed proud of that at tuesdays debate. Lets listen. I dont wear masks like him, every time you see him hes got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask ive ever seen. Ill have 25,000, 35,000 people show up at airports. We use airports are you not worried about the a lot of people so far we have had no problem whatsoever. Weve had no negative effect. Weve had 35,000, 45,000 people at these rallies. Hasnt the cavalier approach to masks and social distancing at these rallies been a mistake . Will it change Going Forward . Again, ill push back on that and say it hasnt been cavalier at all. We take it seriously. Its why we give everyone coming to rallies or events, we give them a mask. We check their temperature. You know, i would say that with regard to joe biden, i think too often hes used the mask as a prop. Mask is very important, but even if hes he could be 20, 30 feet away from the nearest person and still have the mask on. Thats not going to change anything thats out there. Also weve seen with with joe biden, i mean, we cant all just stay in our basement for the rest of our lives. We have to get out there and live our lives and take this on, develop the vaccine, develop more therapeutics, and defeat it. Americans, george, want to get life back to normal. That is the driving thing in everyones lives. They want to get life back to normal. You cant just stay hidden in the basement the entire time. Everyone wants to get life back to normal. Theres no question about that. But has the president taken it too far . One example, on thursday, the president went ahead with his fundraiser in bedminster even after the white house knew that hope hicks had tested positive. Why wasnt that eventually canceled . Well, aga