Trump suggests contracting disease from Gold Star families, triggering new wave of criticism
US President Donald Trump has triggered a new wave of criticism against his treatment of the military after suggesting the coronavirus was transmitted to him from Gold Star families.
“I figured there would be a chance that I would catch it,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “Sometimes I'd be with, in groups of, for instance, Gold Star families. I met with Gold Star families. I didn't want to cancel that. But they all came in, and they all talked about their son and daughter and father.”
The Republican nominee could hurt his chances with the presidential election now less than a month away.
“If the polls can be believed, he’s in the stop-the-bleeding phase of the operation,” Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who was a White House adviser to former President George W. Bush told The Hill on Saturday. “And he keeps nicking himself, sometimes with paper cuts, sometimes with deeper slices. But whatever it is, it's not the thing that he needs.”
Trump took part at the Sept. 27 event at the White House for Gold Star families, after which at least one attendee tested positive for the virus.
“And I can't back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk.’ They come within an inch of my face sometimes,” the president said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I'm not telling them to back up. I'm not doing it. But I did say it's like — it's obviously dangerous. It's a dangerous thing I guess if you go by the covid thing.”
The rest of the Gold Star families are reportedly well with no symptoms of the coronavirus.
“Considering it has been 13 days since the event, all Gold Star family are all doing well and exhibit no symptoms of covid-19,” said Timothy Davis, president and chief executive of the Greatest Generations Foundation, a nonprofit that helped families attend the event, in a statement.
Trump spent three days in the hospital after revealing he had tested positive on October 2.
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