Vice President Mike Pence will be keeping his distance from President Trump for the “immediate future” after one of his top aides tested positive for the coronavirus.
Pence, whose spokeswoman Katie Miller tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, will be “maintaining some distance for the immediate future,” according to a senior administration official, who added, “That’s based on consultation with the White House medical unit.”
The president said Monday that he had not seen the vice president since Miller tested positive. Pence was not at Trump’s afternoon press conference in the Rose Garden and did not attend a meeting at the White House on Saturday. The White House staff received a Monday memo directing “everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask or facial covering.”
The vice president’s intention to keep a safe distance from the president followed weekend reports that the White House had not made plans to keep them separated.
Pence is scheduled to hold a meeting of the coronavirus task force on Tuesday, the senior official told the Washington Examiner. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allow for essential workers exposed to an infected person to return to work after a negative test. Pence has repeatedly tested negative since learning of Miller’s infection.
Miller is married to another top White House aide and senior adviser, Stephen Miller, who allegedly spends “copious” amounts of time with Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, and the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
The spokeswoman’s diagnosis led many of the health experts working with the White House to self-quarantine as best they can. Some of those experts — including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn; and CDC Director Robert Redfield — will testify before a Senate panel via videoconference on Tuesday.
