Donald Trump and the first lady tested positive for COVID-19, capsizing the final month of the President’s 2020 campaign and potentially setting the country up for a dramatic leadership crisis.

Mr Trump’s positive test is the most serious known public health scare encountered by any sitting American president in recent history, and raises a series of unanswerable constitutional and leadership questions.
If he were incapacitated, Vice President Mike Pence would be sworn into office, but it’s unclear what such a worst-case scenario would mean for the 2020 election.
In the immediate future, the diagnosis and decision to quarantine in the White House puts a severe constraint on Mr Trump’s ability to campaign in person across the swing states he needs to win.
News of Mr and Ms Trump’s positive test came after a dramatic day for the President and his inner circle. It included outrage over his ongoing refusal to categorically denounce white supremacy, reports his son’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle has been accused of sexual harassment while in her former job at Fox, and the broadcast on CNN of a damaging recording of Ms Trump complaining to a former friend about having to give “a f— about Christmas stuff”.
Counselor to the President Hope Hicks, left, with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, walk from Marine One to accompany President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One on Wednesday. Hicks and Donald Trump tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday US time. AP
The day then really took a turn for the worst after the White House revealed one of Mr Trump’s closest aids, Hope Hicks who returned on Mr Trump’s plane and helicopter from a rally Minnesota that night had tested positive to coronavirus.
The first couple were then tested close to midnight on Thursday US time (Friday AEST), revealing a short time later on Twitter that they too had tested positive.
More than a dozen of Mr Trump’s closest staff and family who travelled with him and Ms Hicks in recent days are now under close watch for any symptoms, including Rudy Giuliani, chief of staff Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Donald Trump jnr, Eric, Lara and Tiffany Trump, as well as top advisors Stephen Miller, Kayleigh McEnany and Dan Scavino.
Questions are also being raised about who else might have been exposed, including Mr Biden, who stood on a debate stage alongside the President for more than 90 minutes on Tuesday.
Both men are in their 70s, putting them at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that is particularly devastating for people with other risk factors, such as heart disease and obesity.
Ms Hicks began feeling mild symptoms during the plane ride home from a rally in Duluth, Minnesota on Wednesday evening, according to an administration official, and she was quarantined away from others on the plane.
However, networks showed footage of Ms Hicks wearing a mask but sitting directly opposite the President on Marine One, his official helicopter which is used to transfer him and his staff between Andrews Air Force base and the White House lawn.
Mr Trump had consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, even after White House staff and allies were exposed and sickened.
I felt no vulnerability whatsoever, he told reporters back in May.
It can take days for an infection to be detectable by a test, and it was unclear what Mr Trump’s quarantine entails. Minutes before his tweet, the White House distributed a schedule for Friday that showed he planned to go forward with a fundraiser at his Washington, DC, hotel and a political rally in Sanford, Florida.
That schedule was later revised, removing those events and replacing them with a 12:15 pm call hosted by the President “on COVID-19 support to vulnerable seniors”.
Ms Hicks, who serves as counsellor to Mr Trump, also travelled with him to the first presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday. She is the closest White House official to Mr Trump to test positive for the virus so far.
Since the virus emerged earlier this year, Mr Trump, the White House and his campaign have played down the threat and refused to abide by basic public health guidelines including those issued by his own administration such as wearing masks in public and practising social distancing.
Instead, Mr Trump has continued to hold campaign rallies that draw thousands of supporters. The virus has killed more than 200,000 Americans and infected more than 7 million nationwide.
In a statement, White House spokesman Judd Deere said the President “takes the health and safety of himself and everyone who works in support of him and the American people very seriously”.
“White House Operations collaborates with the Physician to the President and the White House Military Office to ensure all plans and procedures incorporate current CDC guidance and best practices for limiting COVID-19 exposure to the greatest extent possible both on complex and when the President is travelling,” Mr Deere said.
Ms Hicks is one of the President’s most trusted and longest-serving aides, having worked as spokesperson for his 2016 campaign. She originally served as White House communications director, and rejoined the administration this year as an adviser ahead of the election.
Multiple White House staffers have tested positive for the virus, including Katie Miller, Vice-President Mike Pence’s press secretary, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, and one of the President’s personal valets. Ms Guilfoyle, who is dating Mr Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump jnr, tested positive in South Dakota before an Independence Day fireworks show at Mount Rushmore.