The ropes. Everyone in the press corps wears masks and its hard to social distance in that space, but we try to do what we can outside. But youre right. We counted about 150 people in the rose garden for that event. And as you saw, very few masks. Absolutely no social distancing, at all. And everyone, you know, this was a happy occasion for folks in the audience. So, there were, you know, lots of greetings and handshaking. People were congregating and socializing and mingling. People were still shaking hands at the white house . They were. I havent shook anybodys hand since, probably, february or march. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I might have seen a couple of, you know, elbow touches or whatnot. But, yes, there was a lot of contact. There was a lot of movement. And it just seemed like just, you know, normal time except for those handful of masks that we did see in the audience. So, you you think youre fine. Thats what we want to know. I hope im fine. I feel fine. We hope youre fine, too. Just checking. I appreciate both of you joining us. Be well. Both of you. And be safe. Thank you so much. Youre welcome. Thanks for having me. This is cnn tonight. I am don lemon. The major, breaking news. The president of the United States hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center tonight after testing positive for coronavirus. President trump said to be experiencing fatigue and fever. And Kellyanne Conway, tweeting, tonight, that shes tested positive for coronavirus. She attended the packed rose garden event last weekend, where the president nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. And she was, also, part of the president s debateprep team. Theres lots to get to, throughout the broadcast this evening. I want to get right to cnns White House Correspondents, Jeremy Diamond and john harwood. Welcome back, jeremy. Good evening to you, john. Jeremy, you were at walter reed tonight. What do we know about the president s condition . Well, don, we havent gotten many updates since that memo. That second memo from dr. Sean connolly, who is the physician to the president. And in that memo, don, this happened shortly before the president entered marine one and was brought here to Walter Reed National military Medical Center to be admitted as a patient for several days. In that memo, don, the president s doctor says that he has been fatigued. We have, also, learned, separately of course, that the president has had a fever, throughout the day. And we understand that he has been dealing with some of those other, moderate symptoms of the coronavirus. But, don, to watch the white houses, you know, the shifting timeline that has happened. Specifically, if you look at that nearly 18hour window, between when the president and his physician announced, around 1 00 a. M. , that the president had, indeed, tested positive for coronavirus. The president s doctor, at that time, saying that the president was doing well. And that he expected that the president would undergo his recovery, not here, at Walter Reed National military Medical Center but, at the white house, itself. And then, in the morning, you had the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, answering a few questions from reporters. At that time, he said that the president was experiencing moderate symptoms, but that he was very energetic and in great spirits. And then, of course, we saw the letter the the president was, indeed, fatigued. And then, we saw the president brought here to walter reed. And so, it obviously raises the question, don, of what happened in that 18hour period . And to what extent did the president s symptoms, you know, really develop to a point where his team, his doctors, felt that he needed to be brought to the hospital . But not only that but for the president , himself, to agree with those recommendations and to feel that, indeed, you know, the benefits of coming to the hospital far outweighed the negative publicity that he he might receive. And, frankly, the image that it would bring onto him, an image of weakness, rather than an image of strength that he often likes to project. So, john, in less than 24 hours after revealing he tested positive for coronavirus, trump is now hospitalized. But, all day, they said he was just fatigued. What are we supposed to believe . Well, we dont have good information. And the the challenge is that this has never been a white house that had much interest in telling the truth, from the very beginning of the administration. And weve seen that play out, this week. Remember, the news that led to the president disclosing his diagnosis was not put out by the white house. It was broken by bloomberg and, then, confirmed by cnn and others, last night. The president knew and his aides kn knew, thursday morning, that hope hicks had felt unwell. She quarantined on the way back from minnesota on air force one. And they went out and had an event at bedminster, yesterday, without telling participants in the event. And without telling the American People what happened. And then, when they came back, the participants in the event thought the president looked exhausted. They were questioning whether he was well. White house didnt say anything. The news broke about hope hicks. The president went on hannity. Affirmed that hope had tested positive. Said, well, melania and i have gotten tested. We dont know if we have it, or not. Well see. Well get tests back. Pretty clear, at that time, from the way that he was speaking and the subsequent disclosure a couple of hours later, that he had gotten some information back. Otherwise, he wouldve had he gotten a negative test, he wouldve said it had been negative. Then, today, we have gotten a series of tiny morsels of information dribbled out. Nothing, in a very forthcoming way. Don, you were talking, in the last hour, about driving your volkswagon beetle as a High School Student when Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. I, also, had a volkswagon beetle in 1981. I was a young reporter. I went down to George Washington university hospital. Sat in the auditorium, where they had eminent doctors joining larry speaks, the Deputy White House press secretary, in briefing the press on what happened to the president , with a lot of detail. We didnt get any of that today. And we still dont have a good visibility into exactly to what degree the president s condition has deteriorated, during the course of the day. To what degree was it just a little worse than they let on in the beginning . It, obviously, is serious when a 74yearold man, who has coronavirus, has a fever, has some symptoms, and goes to the hospital. But we dont really know how serious it is. And unless they start a more proactive process of putting credible medical authorities out there, were not going to know. Thank you, both. Appreciate it. I need to get to our chief medical correspondent, dr. Sanjay gupta, now. A whole lot of questions for him. Sanjay, good to see you, again. So, so many people who have been near this president have tested positive for coronavirus. Do you expect this to keep growing . Well, yes, i do. You know, when we look at, sort of, average number of contacts that someone has during a period between the time theyre exposed to the time they get diagnosed. You know, during during covid time, maybe, 35 contacts. I think thats what professor bromage, who you had on before, talks about. The president , five states, washington, d. C. , several events. Its looking like this saturday event, in particular, was a very concerning event for possibly being a superspreader event. So, yeah. And thats what makes it challenging, don. Right . It makes it challenging to go find those people. Was this a close contact . How far away were you . How long were you there . Was anybody masked . All those sorts of questions. You can see how laborious a task it is to try and Contact Trace like this. But the answer to your question, yes, i think there will be more people, still. I know you cant diagnose someone from watching a video, sanjay. Im at least that smart, right . But what do you think of what you saw from the president s condition today, considering what we have also learned about his symptoms . Well, you know, he he hes obviously he gave that little talk, you know, did that little, video speech ahead of time. It was very short. I think like 20 seconds. Then, he walked to the chopper and he was able to walk off. So i mean, you know, thats all you can really tell. Hes obviously, doesnt require any assistance. Seemed like he was doing okay. But its its hard to know with these types of symptoms. Fever. Fatigue. You know, thats the sort of symptoms ive heard about. I think when you hear that, in somebody who is, maybe, getting a little bit worse, even if theyre still mild or moderate, if theyre progressing in the wrong direction, thats when, you know, you start to get a little nervous. Hes considered a vulnerable patient. Hes got predisposing risk factors for this disease. And at that point, you may be making the decision to say, hey, look. He needs to be in a place where he can get the type of care he needs. Especially, if he starts to worsen, even more. We are told, the president is taking an experimental drug, not approved by the fda. We talked about it a bit, last hour. What does that tell you about the doctors level of concern for the president , sanjay . You know, i i was i was a little surprised by this. And, you you know, tknow, the r folks have been on cnn today a couple times talking about this Monoclonal Antibody therapy. And there is a lot of enthusiasm around this therapy and a lot of promise. This type of therapys been used for other infections. But theres just not really any data around this. This isnt even emergencyuse authorized, don. Thats how early this is. So, you know, i i think that this may be a promising treatment. But to to your question, you got to be thinking. So, youre in the white house. If youre saying the president is doing well, thats the first thing that we heard. But there were these conversations that were happening, maybe around that same time, saying we think it may be reasonable to try an unproven, very experimental, early therapy on the president , as well. I think it speaks to the level of concern. I think there was an increasing level of concern about the president. We dont know whether that therapy has done anything for him or it may be too early to even know, yet. But i think it does speak to the level of concern in the white house, and maybe prompted that decision, ultimately, to get him over to the hospital. What about the people, now, who have come out and said, you know, theyve tested negative . How often should they be tested . And what what is what should their level of concern be . Yeah. So, this this this is such a critical point, right, don . And, you know, we are talking this from this microcosm of the white house. But you can think about this from the country, as a whole. First of all, if you have had exposure to someone with known covid, if you had close contact with that person, you need to be quarantined, irrespective of whether or not you get a test and the test is negative. You need to be quarantined because you have to act, at that point, like youve had like you have the virus. And the whole point of of putting someone like that into quarantine is, you can start to significantly diminish the trajectory of this pandemic. If you dont go into quarantine, and then subsequently, find that you were also shedding virus and spreading virus, thats how the pandemic worsens. So, i dont place a lot of stock into that negative test that they get. A lot of people are going to say, well, im negative after the event. Im good to go. You could test positive, you know, up to 14 days, in some cases, afterward. Average is around five days. But that first, negative test, which a lot of people are getting today or, you know, after these particular events. I i dont think you can really do anything with that information. Yeah. Yeah. It should not shouldnt give people false hope. Hopefully, they are not, you know, positive. But, just out of abundance of caution, continue to be testing tested. Thank you, doctor, i appreciate it. Get some sleep, if you can. Try not to go on with that cuomo guy at midnight. He will keep you up all night. I know, from experience. Because he likes to talk and talk and talk. Thank you very much, doctor. Appreciate it. So i want to get to mark mckinnon, now. He is former adviser to president george w. Bush and president s george w. Bush and john mccain well, he wasnt a president but president george w. Bush and john mccain. And the executive producer of the circus. Its been a long week, mark. Also, jeff mason is here. Jeff mason is a White House Correspondent for reuters. I am so happy to have both of you gentlemen on this evening. Mark, im going to start with you. You know what i am going to talk about first. Got to talk about Kellyanne Conway testing positive. She is at that rose garden event. You were at the white house, today. Is everyone worried . How did it feel to be there today . It felt spooky, don. And you could just sense the anxiety and the tension. Particularly, among younger staffers at the white house. They just seemed kind of furtive. And a lot of the younger staffers were Wearing Masks, that you hadnt seen them wear before. So you can just kind of sense that their world had really been rocked. And, you know, of course, we saw mark meadows come out without a mask. And then, larry kudlow, to his credit, did put on a mask. But spooky is what it foeelt li, don. And then, to see the chopper leave, marine one, fly out to walter reed, was really a chilling scene. You said they were Wearing Masks for the first time. So, when you go, you typically see people not Wearing Masks . Yeah. I mean, most of the time, you do not see people at the white house Wearing Masks. And there was definitely you know, it was a marked difference, today. Yeah. Jeff, you cover the white house. Do you see people Wearing Masks . No. No . And the fact that some people have found religion on masks, now, in october, its just its really hard to fathom. I think back on the history of this, over the last several months. This isnt the first time theres been the start of what appeared to be a mini outbreak within the white housement house. Several months ago, katie miller came down with the coronavirus. So did a military valet. And at that time, the white house put in some more strict rules and regulations for people. People were to wear masks, except when they were sitting at their desks. But, jeff, their strategy seemed to be all about protecting the president , through testing. But they didnt mandate masks. So, you know, over and over again, theres you know, we saw zero social distancing and not Wearing Masks. So, obviously, their strategy didnt work. Theyve gone theyve gone up and down on masks. And, of course, that has been set through an ethos that the president , himself, has has emitted, in terms of his own feelings about masks. But they did have a phase where they were taking things seriously. And then, as the president wanted to show that the country was coming back, that it was time for normalcy again. Despite the fact that coronavirus case numbers continued to go up, they stopped. And you didnt see the the people coming into the press room from the press staff Wearing Masks, anymore. And and as mark just was saying, in the offices, lower and Upper Press Offices that reporters can go into, staff werent Wearing Masks, either. It just didnt have to be that way, then. And it shouldnt have taken the president of the United States coming down with coronavirus for that to shift, now. Don, if i could just jump in. Its very fundamental. Its really about masks. And its all about examples and leading from the top. And donald trump, clearly, his strategy and his thinking is that, by wearing a mask, its showing a sign of weakness. And thats why nobody at that ceremony, last saturday, was wearing a mask. Thats why his supporters dont wear a mask at at his rallies. Its all about him. And we heard about people, like the shlapps going to that saturday meeting. But as soon as they got in there, they took it off. Its pressure to show strength, they think. But ill tell you, the sign of weakness for people without masks its a sign of weakness to the disease and it goes after people without masks. Jeff, the chief of staff thinks that he said today, well, we expect more positive tests. What do you think . Is he right . Well, it seems it seems logical that there would be more positive tests. I mean, were just seeing kind of a slow trickle of of those coming out, tonight. With the latest development from Kellyanne Conway and others who were at that saturday event. You know, yesterday, as john harwood was saying earlier, the first sort of inkling we had of this happening was with the news about hope hicks. But she was just the first one and we dont know, at this point, and im not sure we ever will know, who who brought the initial exposure in. If it was its just its hard to say. But the point is there were a lot of people, and there are a lot of people, both at that event but, otherwise, who come through the white house gates. And have exposure to each other, and then and then, those people have exposure to the president. Yeah. And listen. There are a lot of folks. Lot of folks who are close to the president , including his you know, his children. His soninlaw. Whatever. His soninlaw was on the plane. Jared kushner. Yeah. Jared kushner was on the plane with hope hicks. And then, you know, Jared Kushners married to his daughter. And theyre together and with their children. I mean, its just all so sad and unbelievable. Mark, you know, can can we talk about the campaigns . Okay. Bidens campaign pulling the negative ads, while President Trump is hospitalized. Trumps campaign isnt doing that. Should