Who in Trump's Circle Has Tested Positive for COVID-19?

Donald Trump

President Trump spent three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in early October after testing positive for COVID-19, along with First Lady Melania Trump, their 14-year-old son, Barron, and members of his White House staff.

Trump, 74, later recovered after receiving supplemental oxygen and an experimental antibody cocktail. He also had coughing and a fever.

After returning to the White House and — in a gesture seemingly tailored for TV cameras — dramatically removing his mask on the steps outside, the president told others “don’t be afraid” of COVID-19 and he touted the benefits of the medical care he received, which was not available to the public.

“Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge,” he tweeted at the time. “I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

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Melania Trump

The first lady announced she had tested positive for COVID-19 along with her husband in early October.

Mrs. Trump, 50, had “mild symptoms” and recovered privately at the White House with son Barron, while the president was treated at Walter Reed.

The first lady said at the time that she decided upon “a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food,” adding that “we had wonderful caretakers around us” to help her and Barron.

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Barron Trump

The Trumps’ son was sickened not long after his parents, the first lady said in mid-October.

“Luckily he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms,” Mrs. Trump said then.

The president said soon after that Barron only had COVID-19 for “like two seconds” and was now “free” after fully recovering.

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Donald Trump Jr.

The president’s oldest son, Don Jr., tested positive for the coronavirus on Nov. 20 and said he remained asymptomatic, ending his self-isolation less than a week later.

It was unclear where the president’s son first contracted the virus, but a spokesman told PEOPLE that he spent most of that week “quarantining out at his cabin” before he announced “I’m all done with the Rona” on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

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Kimberly Guilfoyle

Don Jr.’s girlfriend and a top adviser and fundraiser for his father’s failed re-election campaign, Guilfoyle tested positive for COVID-19 the day before President Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore on July 4.

The former Fox News host recovered but her positive test did briefly lead to Don Jr. self-isolating out of precaution.

“I accept this as a blessing from God so that I can understand what other people are going through and those who have lost loved ones,” Guilfoyle said at the time, according to CNN.

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Mark Meadows

Meadows, the White House chief of staff, tested positive for COVID-19 four days after an election-night party linked to other infections, including Housing Secretary Ben Carson.

Meadows, 61, was criticized in October for saying “we’re not going to control” COVID-19 before he tested positive himself weeks later.

He has since recovered from the virus and returned to his role at the White House.

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Rudy Giuliani

The president’s personal attorney, Giuliani was reportedly hospitalized on Sunday, the same day the president announced the former New York City mayor tested positive for the virus.

“I’m getting great care and feeling good,” Giuliani, 76, said in a brief update on Twitter. “Recovering quickly and keeping up with everything.”

In the days before announcing his illness, Giuliani had made a number of maskless appearances in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, as he continued to travel across the country defending the president’s false claims that his 2020 election loss was marred by voter fraud.

The Trump campaign insisted that he tested negative right before traveling.

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Andrew Giuliani

Giuliani’s son, Andrew, said he tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 20 and was “experiencing mild symptoms.”

The positive test came after Andrew had appeared at one of his father’s recent news conferences about the presidential election.

Andrew, 34, is a special assistant at the White House and said after testing positive he was “following all appropriate protocols, including being in quarantine and conducting contact tracing.”

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Chris Christie

Former New Jersey Gov. Christie spent a week in the hospital with COVID-19 in October — not long after attending a late-September Rose Garden event at the White House to celebrate Justice Amy Coney Barrett nomination to the Supreme Court.

The Sept. 26 event, where many attendees were seen without masks and in close physical proximity, was later described as a “superspreader” and was linked to many infections.

“I was wrong not to wear a mask at the Amy Coney Barrett announcement,” Christie, 58, told The New York Times. “And I was wrong not to wear a mask at my multiple debate prep sessions with the president and the rest of the team.”

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Kellyanne Conway

Conway, the former Trump campaign manager-turned-White House senior adviser, also tested positive for COVID-19 after attending Barrett’s nomination ceremony in September.

“My symptoms are mild (light cough) and I’m feeling fine,” Conway, 53, wrote on Twitter hours after Trump and the first lady announced they had tested positive.

Conway later confirmed her teenage daughter, Claudia, had also tested positive. The pair quarantined together at home and have both since recovered.

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Kayleigh McEnany

Four days after the Trumps tested positive for COVID-19, the White House press secretary joined the growing list of the president’s senior staff to have also contracted the respiratory illness.

McEnany, 32, said in early October she had experienced “no symptoms” and later tweeted she was “blessed to be COVID clear!” after roughly two weeks of quarantining.

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Hope Hicks

The early-October news that the Trump senior adviser, who is one of the president’s longest-serving political aides, had tested positive for COVID-19 sparked the string of announcements surrounding the White House’s first major outbreak.

Hicks, 31, tested positive for the virus after traveling with the president on Air Force One, including to a campaign stop in Minnesota and to his first debate with President-elect Joe Biden in Cleveland on Sept. 29.

Hicks, along with Christie, Conway and others, had also helped prepare Trump for that debate.

While she recovered in private, Hicks appeared on the campaign trail on Oct. 16 in Ocala, Florida, where the president invited her on stage to a standing ovation. “We can share a microphone now!” she then joked.

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Robert O’Brien

National Security Advisor O’Brien tested positive for the virus in late July — at the time becoming the highest profile member of the Trump administration to contract the illness.

CNN reported then that O’Brien, 54, had recently traveled to Europe, where he was seen not wearing a mask or practicing social distancing.  

While recovering, the White House said O’Brien experienced “mild symptoms” and was “working from a secure location off site.”

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Ben Carson

Carson, the housing secretary, former Republican presidential candidate and former surgeon, said he was “desperately ill” with COVID-19 in November after attending an election-night party for Trump at the White House and later testing positive.

Carson, 69, said on Facebook in late November that his wife, Candy, had also battled the respiratory disease and both had since recovered.

“I was extremely sick,” Carson wrote then.

“I am blessed to have the best medical care in the world (and I am convinced it saved my life),” he wrote.

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Bill Stepien

Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Stepien tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after the president announced his own positive test result on Oct. 2.

Politico reported then that Stepien, who took over as the head of Trump’s re-election bid in mid-summer, had experienced “mild flu-like symptoms.” The Hill reported that the 42-year-old returned to the campaign’s Virginia headquarters 10 days later.

Trump campaign advisers David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski also tested positive for COVID-19 in November, as the virus spread through both the White House and the president’s campaign staff on separate occasions throughout the year.

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Herman Cain

Cain, a conservative media personality, former Republican presidential candidate and Trump ally, died in July after contracting the coronavirus.

Cain had spent most of that month receiving treatment for COVID-19 in an Atlanta-area hospital after testing positive on June 29.

It was not clear where Cain, who was 74, had contracted COVID-19. But he had attended Trump’s June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which health officials later linked to subsequent infections.

Many attendees, including Cain, were seen without masks or social distancing, though some of those around Cain said he did wear masks at other times, including during parts of the rally.

“Where he got it, it’s kind of neither here nor there, but I wish people would stop trying to turn it into a political angle in that way,” friend Dan Calabrese told PEOPLE then, adding, “I know he did wear a mask and I know he encouraged people on his show to wear a mask.”

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