- Biden said "I don't think about the former president" while taking questions Wednesday.
- Biden was asked about a report that former President Trump tested positive before their first debate.
- Ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows discloses the positive test for the first time in his book.
President Joe Biden had a succinct response when asked about a new report that former President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19 just three days before the first 2020 presidential debate.
"Mark Meadows has written a book revealing that President Trump tested positive for COVID a few days before your first debate," ABC News' Mary Bruce asked Biden after the president delivered remarks on the economy and supply chain issues on Wednesday. "Do you think the former president put you at risk?"
Biden paused, smiled, and responded: "I don't think about the former president. Thank you."
Biden waved goodbye to the assembled reporters and walked away without answering a shouted follow-up question about whether he knew Trump had tested positive.
—CSPAN (@cspan) December 1, 2021
Meadows, who served as Trump's final White House chief of staff, reveals in his forthcoming memoir "The Chief's Chief," a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian, that the former president tested positive for COVID-19 on September 26th — three days before Biden and Trump debated at Case Western University in Cleveland.
Meadows recounts in the book how the former president seemed "a little tired" and maybe had a cold on the 26th, but felt well enough to go to a scheduled campaign rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania. But Meadows got some bad news en route.
"Stop the president from leaving," White House physician Sean Conley told Meadows over the phone as Trump was on Marine One. "He just tested positive for Covid."
Trump then, according to Meadows, took a second Binax test on the plane that came back negative. It's not clear exactly how much time passed between the two tests.
The initial positive result was never disclosed to the organizers of the September 29 debate in Cleveland, Ohio, which required participants to test negative 72 hours beforehand, or to the public.
Trump tested positive again just four days later on October 1 as an outbreak of the virus swept through White House following a celebration for then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that turned into a COVID superspreader.
Trump denied having COVID-19 before the first debate and called his own former chief of staff "fake news" in a Wednesday morning statement responding to the Guardian story. Two former Trump official also confirmed Meadows' account to The New York Times on Wednesday.
"The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News. In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate," Trump said.
Trump saying that "a test revealed" he did not have COVID-19 does not disprove Meadows' version of events recounting him initially testing positive.
