Transcripts For KQED BBC World News America 20240712

Life well planned. The freeman foundation. By judy and Peter Blum Kovler foundation; pursui solutions for americas neglected needs. And by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And this is bbc world news america. Just a month before the u. S. Election, president and his wife melania test posive for the coronavirus. They are selfisolating. Mr. Trump is said to have mild symptoms. We will bring you the latest International Reaction as world leadsend messages wishing the world leader well. I think we all want to send our best wishes to the president and first lady. I have done that this morning, as you can imagine. The news of President Trumps diagnosis comes as the u. S. Unemployment rate improves slightly. It is the la major snapshot of the jobs picture before americans had to the polls head to the polls. Katty welcome to world news america on pbs and around the globe. U. S. President donald trump is fatigued but in good spirits. There is according to his doctors after testing positive for the coronavirus. The white house as President Trump, 74, still able to work from his quarantine. His diagnosis along with that of his wife and members of his cagn team has already disrupted this electionpaign a month before polling day. Officials are racing to test people who came into contact with the president in recent ys. Our north america editor has this report. Last night, and went now appears to be grim irony, the president made a speech in the white house about the pandemic. The worst was behind us, he said. President trump i just want to say that the end of the pandemic is in sight and next you will be one of the best years in the history of our country. Later in that evening came a bombshell statement that will reverberate around the world, the most Serious Health issue to affect a serving president in decades. He tweeted tonight the first lady and i tested positive for covid19. We will begin our quarantine and Recovery Process immediately. We will get through this together today, the president s chief of staff gave reporters this update. The president and first lady tested positive for covid19. They remain in good spirits. The president does have mild symptoms. A hint of Something Big wrong came early in the evening last night when it was announced this woman, hope hicks, had contracted the virus. On wednesday, she was part of the inner circle to travel with the president on the cramped marine one helicopter. None of them is wearing a mask. As donald tmp seemed to dance with joy at the rally in duluth, minnesota, she becomes symptomatic. Everyone who has been in close contact with the president , not the least joe biden who shared the debate stage with him for a shouting 90 minutes on tuesday night. A debate whether the president ripped into the democratic candidate for his mask wearing. President trump i dont wear masks like him. Every time he speaks, he has a mess. He shows up with the biggest mask i have ever seen. It was noticeablne of the trump entourage wore face coverings. That actually violated the les of the cleveland clinic, which was in charge of all the safety issues inside the hall. Everybody except for the president , Vice President , and i were not supposed wear masks. We are supposed wear masks. His ambivalence towards masks is evident. President trump can you take it up because i cannot hear you . I will speak loudly. President trump you want to be politically correct. It is a recommendation. They recommend it. I am feeling good. He has been holding rallies as if covid was in the Rearview Mirror with thousands turning up. No attempts at social distancing. Few wearing masks. Today, messages of support from around the world. This from Boris Johnson, who has been with the president is now. I think we all want to send our best wishes to the president and the first lady. I have done that this morning, as you can imagine. I am sure the will bothy stage a very strong i am sure they will both ste a very strong recovery. A message of support from political rivals. This from joe biden, who tested negative today. Sending my prayers for the heth and safety of the first lady and the president othe United States after they tested positive for covid19. My wife jill and i pray they will make a quick and full recovery. This is not a matter of politics. It is a reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. But another leading democrat, the speak of the house nancy pelosi, comes very close to saying to the president it serves you right. This is tragic. Very sad. But it also is something that again going into crowds unmasked and all the rest, sort of a brazen invitation for Something Like this to happen. This is first and foremost a medical issue for the president and his wife. But it has upended a president ial Election Campaign that needed no further education. With many questions begged and few answto give at this early stage. Jon sopel, bbc news, at the white house. For more on what has been a rather busy day in washington, i am joined by our senior north america reporter, anthony zurcher. There seems to be confusion about thesidents symptoms. What do we know . Well, there was a letter released by the white house physician saying the president was fatigued but in good spirits. Detailed some of the medication, including a drug cocktail he was taking to treat the virus. There have been other media reports saying the president has had a slight fever and some respiratory issues, but that was not included in that letter from the white house. We are waiting to see any sort of in person statement from the white house physician or even some sort of remark from donald trump via twitter. The last we heard from him of course was netsuite at 1 00 in the morning was that tweet at 1 00 in the morning in washington, d. C. , announcing he and the first lady tested positive. Lets talk about the politics of this. Joe biden now out on the campaign trail. The president stuck in the white house in isolation. How does this, do you think, impact the result of the election or potentially impact the result of the election . It is difficult to make any predictions as fastmoving as the story has been going. I think a lot of it depends on how donald trump recovers, how quickly he recovers from the virus. Obviously, suspending your campaign for any stretch of time just 32 days before the election is a serious blow. Particularly when joe biden is out there on the campaign trail now giving speeches and getting walltowall coverage from the Cable News Networks about this. The risk for the president is if you look at Public Opinion polls, genally the public has not approved of the job donald trump has done in handling this virus. Anything that focuses attention on the virus going to the election will be difficult for him to overcome. Ok. Anthony zurcher there. Thank you for joining us for the political side of that. Many questions have been raised about the president s age, and some are asking what this could mean for his health. Mr. Trump has not released many details about his physical condition. Previous president s have done so. Prior to his dinosis, his doctors say he is in excellent health. Our guesjoins us from providence, the dean of a school of health. We just learned president received an eight gram dose of antibody cocktail. His doctor says it was a precaution. What do you read intohat announcement given he is being described as being fatigued . Thank you for having me on. Obviously, he is a highrisk individual. His age, maybe some comorbidities. We are know much about them. He is overweight. So treating him as a highrisk individual is the right approach. This antibody cocktail that he received has not gotten fda approval. There is some preliminary evidence. The way i read all of this is his doctors are taking this very seriously. Taking his symptoms to mean he potentially has a serious case of this. We dont know the details. We dont know how serious this will be. Being proacve, that is appropriate given this is the president of the u. S. And a highrisk individual. We have heard now several people around the president testing negative, people who had come into contact with him in recent days. Vice president joe biden, for example, and his wife have tested negative. Do you think those negative tests mean those people are out of the woods . I dont unfortunately. It takes several days after you have been infected for your test to turn positive because there is a period of time that we call the incubation period where the virus has to grow enough that it will become detectable. That period is anywhere between three and five days. Some studies suggest it might be seven days. If you think about Vice President biden interacting with the president on tuesday, you could easily imagine that tomorrow, sunday, monday will also be within that time period where if he had been infected he could be positive. Always good to get negative tests for those people but i do not find enough solace in them to assume the people are in the clear. On the issue of testing, the white house has repeatedly said and the president has set himself, i dont need to wear a mask or stand distant or whatever it is because i am tested all the time and the people around me tested all the time. Those tests, something can slip through. They are not foolproof. I wonder whether the white house got lulled into a falssense of security by these tests. This is incredibly frustrating because many of us have been saying for a long time that the testing regime, while it is good, it is inadequate. First of all, the staff are getting tested on an ongoing basis, but people who come to visit the president on a oneoff basis might get a single test. One negative test is not enough. We all read somebody with the infection would slip through. Sure enough, that clearly happened. What we are now seeing is what looks like potentially a pretty sizable outbreak across multiple people in the white house. This was all completely preventable. They needed to have people wearing masks. They needed to do some amount of social distancing around the president. They just have not done any of those things. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where the president of the United States is infected and potentially sick. Ok. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Their reaction to todays news has spread far beyond americas borders. The british Prime Minister has wished the president and first lady a speedy recovery. Boris johnson himself tested positive for the coronavirus. He had to go to hospital back in april. He has been back at work for a long time now and joined a series of World Leaders who have sent their good wishes to the president. Here is our diplomatic correspondent. Donald trumps positive test for covid19 may have plunged the american electn into turmoil. But it also potentially has nsequences for the rest of the world. A disrupted election is one thing. An incapacitated u. S. Leader would be another. One man who knows what the president is going through is Boris Johnson. He caught coronavirus in march and beme so ill, he spent days in intensive care and later said it could have gone either way. First of all, in my own case as he recovered in hospital, there was a lite personal sympathy for the Prime Minister. The question now is whether the president will garner similar support or face fresh chrysostom for understating the threat of coronavirus criticism for understating the threat of coronavirus. The president of brazil, bolsonaro, fell ill in july after refusing to soal distance. The president of honduras and his wife tested positive in june. The president of guatemala tested positive last month. And of course, closest to home, the prince of wales went into isolation after catching the disease in march. This morning, amid jittery financial markets, messages of support flooded in from around the world. Japans economy minister spoke of the major impact on the markets and said he hoped mr. Trump would recover as soon as possible. In a tweet, the indian Prime Minister wished the president a quick recovery and good health. Chancellor merkel of germany said she hoped mr. And misses trump recover well from their coronavirus infection. Let me, who makes visitors pass through a disinfecting tunnel before they meet him, sent mr. Trump a telegram, saying he is certain the president s vitality, good spirits, and optimism will help him cope with the virus. The news of President Trumps diagnosis came as quite a shock to many americans, regardless of their political persuasion. In fact, it dropped why a lot of americans were asleep. It was 1 00 a. M. In wngton. We have more on the reaction heard today to the development. Everywhere you go here, donald trump getting the virus is todays biggest news. She ard when she got to work and says she was not surprised. Figured he does not wear a masky often and he is so totally against it, does not lieve in it. Iigure someone like that would get it, just to prove it does exist. Kind of like you kind of deserve it, man. A trump supporter said he felt the president would come back stronger fromhis. I think it will be another one of those things he runs on and says i had it, dealt with it, and live with it. Its one of those things he can give his own personal experience, which i think he does a fantastic j of doing. s critics wonder if it will work in the president s favor, too. If he is very sick, will people say some conspiracy that the Biden Campaign went after him or the deep state is going after him . Will there be a lot of sympathy votes . Up the road in washington, visiting from supporters say they were not concerned. One of them disputed the fact the president had not taken the virus seriously. I thi what you see the president doing his more than downplaying masks. I think you see him up playing freedom. He believes people should choose to wear them. The president repeatedly telling people it is only a small proportion of those who get th virus are badly affected as part of the reason why many of his supporters are now telling us they feel relatively relaxed. There is of course no way of telling the severity of symptoms the president will now experience and how badly the election could be appended. Upended. It is the story everyone is talking about here. You are watching bbc world news america. Still to come on the program, 31 days until election day. Where does this leave the campaigns with President Trump being in isolation . British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says it is up to the European Union to unblock a trade deal and avoid an abrupt brexit separation at the end of this year. The negotiations between the two sides have been further complicated by the eu beginning Legal Proceedings against the u. K. Here is our european editor with more. I think it is very important to realize from the eus point of viewhat it did do and did not do yes, it lost a long drawn out Legal Proceedings today but has not walked out the door on the trade negotiations. Why not if it is so incensed about the market . For three reasons. First of all, the blame game. The e. U. Does not want to be the first want to walk out of the door on negotiations. Two, the e. U. Says it really wants a deal. Ree, if a deal is found, that will go a long way to allaying the governments concerns reflected in the market. The e. U. Hopes that will make the difficult part of the bill obsolete. Just over a month to go until election day here so the timing of President Trumps covid diagnosis is significant. It is not october surprised that sometimes comes up in an election year, but never quite like this o. Nick bryant reports now from michigan and how it can affect the race. It is a scam. The covert tests are a scam. The coronavir has open up yet ather fault line in an already fractured company. These militia arpart of the protests of those who see the covid restrictions as a threat to american liberty. It was packed with supporters of donald trump. Most of them still not wearing masks. It began with heads bowed in prayer for the president. We can take like five seconds to say a prayer for the guy. Ok. Lord, we pray for President Trump, his family, for a swift recovery. I understand he has some mild symptoms but he will probably be over them soon and it will be a victory for him. Victory in what way . Victory and showing there is a lot of to this covid stuff. I just hope people through it. You think you took enough prections . You think you should have worn a mask . No. This is a free country. Everybody should not be dictated to. Everybody should not have to wear a mask if they dont want to. This was another covid protest. Childcare workers bemoaning their lack of financial aid. The responses to the overnight news spoke of how american democracy right now, there is not even an agreedupon set of facts. I dont believe it. Why dont you believe it . I think it is just a ploy because he did so bad debating. He did horrible in the debate. So i think it is a ploy to get out of debating again. If he does have it, i dont believe it. I cant even say if he does have it. I just dont believe it. Michigan is a key battleground state that donald trump won and especially in 2016. But there are so many but there are not so many trump yard signs as there were four years ago. . Is a lifelong republican who supported him back then, but he has already voted for joe biden partly because of the president s mishandling of covid. Initially denied it, called it fake news, blame it on the democrats, blame it on the chinese, then he transitioned and said it will go away like magic and it will go away when the heat comes, then we just had to deal with it, then we will have the vaccine just before the election. Cant trust anything he says. In a bygone political age, the nation might have rallied behind a leader suffering from a virus that killed so many of his compatriots. This is such a deeply divided america. This is such a deeply divisive american president. Usa, usa even this pandemic has become an excel element of political polarization. Accelerant of political polarization. Nick bryant, bbc news. Nick bryant reporting from michigan. We have some news that is just coming into us. The president has been moved to a special suite according to American Television networks at the walter reed medical facility in bethesda, maryland. That is just outside washington, d. C. It is being described as a precautionary measure. Lets get more on this from anthony zurcher. What are you hearing . The report out of the white house this is a statement from kayleigh mcenany, the White House Press secretary, saying the president is in good spirits , has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day. But an abundance of caution at the recommendation of the physician and medical experts. The president is relocating to walter reed for the next few days. This is a fairly significant development, particularly given the fact that we have not heard from the president throughout the course of the day. He has not tweeted. We only really heard from the white house in two statements released by the white house physician updating the media and the American Public on the president s condition. Ok. Those are live pictures of the hospital or he will be moved to. That com up. We have been told up until now officially that he was just fatigued with mild symptoms. Does this seem to sit at odds with that description . There have been American Media reports that the president also had respiratory symptoms and was having a lowgrade fever. The white house physician has not confirmed that. This certainly indicates the possibility that the president needs to be under closer observation. They say it is a preventative measure, having him at a medical facility, a top rate medical facility, would make it easier to provide him a more him more treatment if necessary. Ok. Thank you very much for joining us. We just want to get to one other big story because of course that is the econo. The person who was the white house will have a huge challenge on tir hands to revitalized the economy revitalize the economy. The u. S. Jobless rate dipped slightly, 7. 9 percent. Hiring is still weak because of course millions of people lost their jobs during the pandemic. Lets get more from jason, who served as white house Economic Advisor for president obama. He is now at the u. S. Kennedy school of government. Thanks for joining me. All those jobless numbers, if this recovery is slowing, whoever will be the next president is going to have a huge challenge on their hands, arent they . Absolutely. Recovery started really fast. In part that is because we had good polies. In part that is because the first part of the recovery was the easy part. And were getting the virus under control. Now it is a hard road to recovery. The policies have gone away. The virus is back. And we are seeing that in a slowing recovery. European countries have subsidized furlough programs for their companies right up until the middle of next year or the end of next year in some cases. Should the American Government be doing more to help people . The American Government basically did the same thing through the Unemployment Insurance system. It gave you money while you were furloughed, and then many of those people, millions, were called back to their employers, so it works similar to the european system. The problem is it expired at the end of july, so workers who were getting their wages replaced by Unemployment Insurance have now seen a big pay cut. They have cut back their spending. That in turn is hurting jobs throughout the economy. Briefly, jason, can i ask you your reaction having worked in the white house to the news the president is being moved to walter reed . I dont know anymore more than anyone else. But certainly that makes me concerned about his wellbeing and what it means. We know it is a terrible virus and it can get a lot worse over time for people. Ok. Thank you very much for joining us with that news coming and that the president is being moved. Thank you so much for narrator funding for this presentation of this program is provided by. Language specialists teaching spanish, french and more. Raymond james. The freeman foundation. Judy and Peter Blum Kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for americas neglected needs. And by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Girl we are the curious. Woman 1 wow man 1 the adventurous. Man 2 oh daniel tiger grrr woman 2 those venturing out for the first time. All blast off [rocket explosion] man 3 and those who have never lost our sense of wonder. Man 4 whoa man 5 are you seeing th . [quacking] vo we are the hungry. Cookie monster cookie man 6 the strong. Muhammad ali i must be the greast vo the joyful. Bob ross a happy little cloud. Man 3 we believe there is always more we can uncover. Girl more we can explore. Woman 3 we believe. Man 6 . In the capacity for goodness. Vo and the potential for greatness. Man 7 the torch has been passed to a new generation of americans. Man 1 pbs. Man 3 pbs. Girl pbs. Woodruff. On the newshour tonight, the president heads to Walter Reed Hospital after he and the first lady test positive for covid19. What it means for him and the country. Then, one on one with leon panetta. How the former defense secretary, cia head and white house chief of staff sees this moment. And its friday. Mark shields and david brooks weigh in on this uncertain time so close to the american election. All that and more on tonights pbs newshour