Donald Trump announced on Sunday that his earthy personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani tested positive for COVID-19, the latest of many in the President’s inner circle, where few wear masks, to be struck by the virus.
• Read also: All developments in the COVID-19 pandemic
At 76, Giuliani was reportedly hospitalized in Washington, according to the New York Times and the ABC channel.
The announcement comes as the United States faces an unprecedented outbreak of the epidemic.
Washington, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan: For the past month, Rudy Giuliani, 76, has crisscrossed the United States, without a mask, to challenge Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 3 presidential election.
It is also by denouncing this result again that the Republican billionaire announced Sunday that his lawyer was ill.
“Rudy Giuliani, by far the best mayor in New York history, and who worked tirelessly to unmask the most corrupt (by far!) Election in US history, tested positive in Chinese virus, ”tweeted the US president, reusing an expression that has already provoked Beijing’s ire.
“Get over yourself quickly, Rudy, we’ll get on with the job !!!” added Donald Trump, who still does not recognize his defeat, announced on November 7.
The lawyer’s son, Andrew Giuliani, later posted on Twitter that his father “is resting, receiving excellent care and feeling well.” Andrew Giuliani, who works at the White House, had himself been infected with the virus last month.
Long list
Hours earlier, Mr Giuliani was interviewed live on Fox News, showing no apparent signs of the disease.
He then again mentioned a coordinated fraud from “Washington”. And he said he was convinced that Donald Trump could emerge victorious, thanks to legal recourse.
So far, however, courts have dismissed a slew of complaints filed by the Trump team.
It is in an attempt to demonstrate this “fraud” that Rudy Giuliani has participated in several long auditions in recent weeks, indoors and without wearing a mask.
On Wednesday, he was at the Michigan Assembly in Lansing for a hearing lasting more than four hours. On Thursday he was in Atlanta, Georgia.
On Saturday night, Donald Trump and his entourage also did not wear masks during his first meeting since the presidential election, in Georgia. In the compact crowd, gathered in the open air, only a few spectators had any.
At the beginning of October, the American president had also received tested positive for COVID-19.
After three days of hospitalization, Donald Trump, 74, returned to the White House and then resumed campaign meetings a few days later, with a frantic pace just before the poll. He then declared himself “immune”.
His wife, Melania Trump; his sons Barron and Donald Jr .; his spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany; his advisers Hope Hicks and Chris Christie; his chief of staff, Mark Meadows; its campaign leader, Bill Stepien; Republican Party President Ronna McDaniel … The list of those close to the former real estate mogul affected by the virus is long.
With its reversals, a skepticism displayed on the virus and the barrier gestures, Donald Trump’s management of the health crisis has been strongly criticized in opinion polls.
“I hear people repeat like parrots that masks do not work”, said Sunday the Dre Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Crisis Unit Coordinator. “They are wrong”.
The United States have beaten for three consecutive days the absolute record of new cases in 24 hours, with nearly 230,000 contaminations recorded between Friday and Saturday evening.
And they deplore more than 2,500 deaths in 24 hours for five days – unheard of, even at the worst of the epidemic peak of spring. More than 100,000 people sick with the coronavirus are currently hospitalized across the country, a level that had never been reached before.
The United States recorded 181,309 new infections and 1,110 new deaths on Sunday.
Former Mayor of America
At 76, a cigar smoker, Rudy Giuliani is a person at risk. He confided in early October, after the multiple cases reported to the White House, to take hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure.
Then the septuagenarian made the headlines in November after sweating profusely at a press conference in Washington, to the point of letting the dye of his hair run down his temples.
Former prosecutor who had fought against the New York mafia, Rudy Giuliani had received the nickname of “mayor of America”, popular across a country in mourning, for his reaction to the head of the mayor of New York after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
He has today become the target of the anger, and mockery, of Democrats who denounce his defense of conspiracy theories.