Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for Covid-19, the president has announced.
The president tweeted: “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!”
Rudy Giuliani, who has been leading the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to the 2020 election results, is the latest person in the president’s inner circle to be infected.
President Trump and his team have been criticized for shunning safety guidance. He got ill in October.
Nearly 14.6 million people have been infected with Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 281,234 people have died – the highest figures of any country in the world.
On December 6, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator, criticized the Trump administration for flouting guidelines and peddling “myths” about the pandemic.
She told NBC: “I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work towards herd immunity.”
“This is the worst event that this country will face,” she said.
Donald Trump Jr Tests Positive for Covid-19
Barron Trump Had Covid-19, First Lady Confirms
Rudy Giuliani, 76, has not commented publicly on his diagnosis.
It is not clear whether the former New York mayor is experiencing symptoms, whether he is self-isolating or when he caught the virus.
Since the November 3 election, Rudy Giuliani has travelled the country as part of efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat. During many of his events, he was seen without a face mask and ignoring social distancing.
On December 3, he travelled to Georgia where he repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud at a Senate committee hearing about election security.
Dozens of people in Trump’s orbit are said to have tested positive for Covid-19 since October, including his chief of staff Mark Meadows and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
First Lady Melania Trump and sons Donald Jr. and Baron also contracted the virus.
President Trump’s own diagnosis upended his unsuccessful campaign for a second term in office, less than a month before he faced Joe Biden in the presidential election.
