Mr. Trump relented. On the walk out to his helicopter, he had lost so much strength that he dropped a briefcase he had planned to carry outside, wh
Mr. Trump relented. On the walk out to his helicopter, he had lost so much strength that he dropped a briefcase he had planned to carry outside, where reporters were lined up to observe him, Mr. Meadows recalled.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Last week, The Guardian obtained a copy of Mr. Meadows’s book and revealed that Mr. Trump had first tested positive for the coronavirus on Sept. 26, 2020, three days before his first presidential debate with Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Meadows has criticized reporters for focusing on that test and not the negative result from a different test a short time later. Mr. Trump has tried to make the same case, insisting that Mr. Meadows had affirmed that he was not sick before or “during” the debate.
Yet in his own book, Mr. Meadows writes that “we’ll probably never know whether President Trump was positive that evening.” Mr. Trump, according to an adviser, has grown angrier at Mr. Meadows in recent days, describing him as “dumb” for discussing the test results.
On Oct. 1, 2020, Mr. Trump revealed he was taking a coronavirus test after news reports that his aide Hope Hicks had tested positive. Although the president implied that it was Ms. Hicks who had infected him, Mr. Meadows wrote that it was clear to him that Mr. Trump was already significantly ill that night.
“I’ve lost so much strength,” Mr. Meadows quoted Mr. Trump as telling him, adding, “The muscles are just not responding.”
By then, Mr. Meadows had arranged for a monoclonal antibody therapy made by Regeneron to be secretly delivered to the White House. He said he asked the company’s chief executive, Leonard S. Schleifer, for four doses, mentioning that Ms. Hicks and Melania Trump, the first lady, had tested positive. Mr. Meadows did not reveal who else might have needed it.
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