Coronavirus live updates: Rural areas in U.S. see case counts soar
October 26, 2020 at 8:15 PM EDT
Analysis: White House efforts to conceal Pence team’s coronavirus outbreak show Trump’s penchant for secrecy
By James Hohmann and Mariana Alfaro
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirmed Sunday that he sought to keep the public from finding out that at least five members of Vice President Pence’s staff have tested positive for the coronavirus just over a week before the election.
“Well, obviously, yes,” Meadows said on CNN. “Sharing personal information is not something that we should do, not something that we do actually do — unless it’s the vice president or the president or someone that’s very close to them where there’s people in harm’s way.”
That admission was overshadowed by an even more startling comment during the same interview:
“We are not going to control the pandemic,” Meadows said on CNN.
The reflexive, almost default, impulse to hold back important information dovetails with a pattern of intense secrecy that has been a hallmark of President Trump’s tenure in office. Because the White House is so prone to leaks, the fact that Trump has concealed – or tried to hide – so much unflattering information often gets overlooked.
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