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Air Force One Exposure Puts a Hold on Biden Campaign Coverage for VOA
Reporter

Steve Herman

   WHITE HOUSE - The day before President Donald Trump tested positive for
   COVID-19, he flew to Minnesota on Air Force One with senior staff, as
   well as pool reporters, including VOA's White House bureau chief Steve
   Herman. The next day Herman traveled to Wilmington to prepare to cover
   a Joe Biden rally, the only reporter who attempted to switch between
   the Trump and Biden campaigns this week. He describes the experience
   following the president's positive coronavirus test.

   At the White House on Wednesday morning, a member of the medical office
   swabbed my nose to collect a sample for the routine COVID-19 rapid test
   administered daily to all members of the protective pool of reporters
   covering the president's activities.

   It was a brief and painless procedure. I had undergone it more than a
   dozen times in recent months -- always with the same "negative" result.
   That has also been the case for my colleagues on the White House beat,
   Patsy Widakuswara and Carolyn Presutti, with whom I alternate campaign
   coverage when it is VOA's turn in the rotation among radio networks.

   As the day's designated radio pooler for the Minnesota round trip on
   Air Force One, I was responsible for ensuring that all the networks
   would have broadcast quality audio whenever the president spoke -- from
   the time we left Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to our post-midnight
   return on the same military tarmac.

   The president's first stop in Minnesota, known as "the Land of 10,000
   Lakes," was a massive multimillion-dollar estate on the shores of Lake
   Minnetonka. At a fundraiser at the home of wealthy Republican Party
   donor Martin Davis, during which the accompanying media waited outside
   in our vans, Trump mingled with an unannounced number of guests. Thus,
   we were not able to observe if the participants were wearing masks or
   engaged in social distancing.

   Duluth rally

   Such recommended precautions were certainly not seen at the president's
   next stop in Duluth, where an airport rally was held. Thousands of
   enthusiastic supporters turned out -- crammed in bleachers, on the
   tarmac and in the hangar. Only about a fifth of the crowd wore any type
   of face covering.

   Trump spoke for 45 minutes. His normal rally remarks usually stretch
   beyond an hour. This, I noted at the time, was unusual. But it was
   chilly and windy on the north shore of Lake Superior on the last day of
   September.

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