Trump tweets that he’s ‘looking forward’ to the Miami debate as he battles COVID-19
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s “looking forward” to an Oct. 15 town hall debate in Miami with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden despite being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week.
“I am looking forward to the debate on the evening of Thursday, October 15th in Miami. It will be great!” Trump tweeted.
At the time of his tweet, Trump was less than 24 hours removed from his discharge from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he’d been treated as a patient since COVID-19 symptoms forced him to the hospital Friday for treatment. The president’s physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, told reporters Monday that Trump was improving, but would continue to receive treatment at the White House and was not yet “out of the woods.”
Trump’s press office on Tuesday released a memo from Conley stating that the president had reported no symptoms during his first morning back in the White House..
The Centers for Disease Control’s website states that people who tested positive for COVID-19 with symptoms “can be with others” if 10 days have passed from the time symptoms first appeared, including at least 24 hours without a fever or fever-reducing medication.
Trump says he tested positive for the novel coronavirus last Thursday. His doctors and the White House have declined to say when he last tested negative. Conley on Monday said that Trump’s fever has been gone for days without the use of medication to knock down his temperature, but would not put a timetable on how long Trump would be contagious.
“I’m not going to put a specific number” on that, Conley said. “But we look at that [10-day] window.”
It remained unclear Tuesday whether or how the Miami debate will be held. The event is scheduled as a town hall forum at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, with undecided voters at the venue asking questions directly of the president and the former vice president.
The Commission on Presidential Debates did not respond to a phone call and emails seeking comment. Some members of the organization are open to holding the debate virtually, CNN reported Monday. Suzette Espinosa, a spokeswoman for the Arsht Center, told the Miami Herald that “there is no new information” on the status of the debate.
Biden said Monday before campaigning in Miami that he was also “looking forward” to the town hall debate, and said he would debate Trump as long as medical experts assured him it is safe. But Tuesday, he expressed caution about being in the same place as Trump if he continues to test positive.
“I think if he still has COVID, we shouldn’t have a debate,” Biden told reporters.
The first and only vice presidential debate Wednesday between U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence is expected to feature plexiglass as a safety barrier. Pence continues to test negative for the coronavirus, according to his representatives.
This story was originally published October 6, 2020 at 12:26 PM.
