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Post Reports

The irony of Trump’s casual attitude toward coronavirus

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.45.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on Post Reports, Toluse Olorunnipa on how the coronavirus is testing President Trump’s leadership. Susannah George and Missy Ryan on how Afghanistan’s instability could affect peace talks. And remembering an English village that self-quarantined during the bubonic plague. 

Read more:

More than 500 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the United States, including an attendee of a conference where President Trump spoke. Follow our live coverage here. 

In Afghanistan, rival presidential inaugurations took place Monday — a day before negotiations between the government and the Taliban were expected to start. 

As governments around the world impose quarantines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, it is worth remembering the extraordinary story of an English village that faced an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the 17th century.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

From the newsroom of the Washington Post.

0:04.0

Hi, this is Vanessa Williams from the Washington Post.

0:08.0

Hey, it's Philip Rutger at the Washington Post. Do you have a minute?

0:12.0

Hi, this is Dan Zagg. This is Post Reports. I am Martin Powers.

0:16.0

It's Monday, March 9th.

0:20.0

Today, why the president remains unconcerned about coronavirus.

0:26.0

Negotiating with the Taliban and a tale of self-quarantine during the plague.

0:32.0

This weekend, we confirmed that there was a coronavirus patient, someone who had coronavirus, who attended CPAC,

0:42.0

which is a conservative conference that is attended by all of the top Republicans in the country, including President Trump,

0:48.0

Vice President Pence, several members of the Trump administration, and this person had interactions with the organizer of the president.

0:54.0

That's what happened when President Trump was in the press conference.

0:58.0

He was the president of the Trump administration, and he was the president of the Trump administration,

1:02.0

who had interactions with the organizer of the conference, Matt Schlapp, who interacted with a lot of the top officials who attended the conference, including shaking hands with President Trump.

1:06.0

That seems really bad.

1:08.0

It's potentially bad. I'm Tolu Oluoriniva. I cover the White House and national politics for the post.

1:14.0

The fact that President Trump is now only two degrees away from coronavirus in terms of having physical contact with someone who was in contact with a patient.

1:22.0

It shows that this is right at the doorstep of the White House. Now, the White House says that President Trump feels fine.

1:28.0

He did not have any direct contact with this man.

1:30.0

But there are a lot of questions about how close this got to people who were around the president, and what kinds of risk this virus could pose to the president.

1:40.0

Remember, he is a senior citizen. He's in his 70s. He's one of the people who would be at risk if he was in contact with anyone who had this virus.

1:48.0

And that's part of the reason that people are asking a lot of questions about what this will mean for the president's next several months in office, whether he will have to change the way he campaigns, the way he conducts himself, in part because we've seen this one potential close call of the president getting close to the coronavirus.

2:05.0

And now that we know that this is out there in the community, it's likely that he will be shaking hands and interacting with people who may have interacted with the patient.

...

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