“White House adviser Corey Lewandowski tested positive for COVID-19, making him the latest person in President Donald Trump’s orbit to come down with the virus, several news outlets reported. Lewandowski, one of Trump’s 2016 campaign managers, attended the president’s election night watch party in the White House’s East Room, where maskless guests roamed without any social distancing measures. He is currently quarantining. “I feel great,” he texted CNBC. He added that he could have contracted the virus from someone in the Philadelphia area, which he recently visited, Politico reported. The White House party may be another superspreader event that happened about a month and a half after Trump’s crowded Supreme Court announcement gathering landed him in the hospital with the disease. People close to Trump who have reportedly caught the virus recently include Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development; Brian Jack, White House political affairs director; David Bossie, who is steering the Trump campaign’s legal attacks on the election results; Healy Baumgardner, a former campaign staffer; and Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) confirmed over the weekend that he tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, meaning he had the virus at some time over the last eight months. People who contract the virus can take up to 14 days to show symptoms, so it is possible that others who attended the election night party have yet to be diagnosed. Since the election, Lewandowski has been on the front line of Trump’s efforts to stop local officials from counting every vote and to cast doubt on the results. He attended the Trump campaign’s news conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, which took place around the time news outlets began calling the race for President-elect Joe Biden. Lewandowski also traveled with Trump, Bossie and others to campaign rallies in the final days before the polls opened.
