Trump COVID-19 updates: Top Trump aide Stephen Miller tests positive

Miller's married to the VP's communications director, who tested positive in May

Last Updated: October 8, 2020, 6:56 PM EDT

President Donald Trump is back in the White House and back on Twitter as he fights a coronavirus infection.

The president left Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday evening, landing at the White House shortly before 7 p.m.

After Marine One landed on the White House South Lawn, Trump walked up the steps of White House, faced the cameras and took off his mask. Trump gave a thumbs up and an extended salute to Marine One, before walking inside the residence.

Trump, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday and spent several days in the hospital, tweeted Tuesday morning, "FEELING GREAT!"

The president is returning to a White House plagued by COVID-19 as 20 people in Trump's orbit have reported testing positive since last week. Questions remain about how many more people at the highest levels of government had been exposed to the virus after a week of events involving the president where social distancing and mask-wearing were lax.

Melania Trump, who has been at the White House since she tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, "continues to rest and is doing well," the first lady's chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, said Tuesday.

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife tested negative for the coronavirus again on Tuesday morning, the vice president's office said, while Sen. Kamala Harris tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday, according to an aide. Pence and Harris are in Utah ahead of Wednesday night's vice presidential debate.

Oct 06, 2020, 1:05 PM EDT

Trump reports no symptoms on Tuesday, his physician says

The president is reporting no symptoms from the coronavirus on Tuesday, Trump's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said in a memorandum.

"This morning the President’s team of physicians met with him in the Residence. He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms," the memo said. "Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97%. Overall he continues to do extremely well."

President Donald Trump stands on the balcony outside of the Blue Room as returns to the White House, Oct. 5, 2020, after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md.
Alex Brandon/AP

Oct 06, 2020, 12:26 PM EDT

White House valet who traveled with Trump has tested positive

A White House valet who traveled with the president last week and often works in the Oval Office tested positive for COVID-19 this weekend, according to administration sources familiar with the matter.

Valets are employees who typically serve the president lunch or bring him drinks upon his request.

Earlier this year, another valet who works in the Oval Office also tested positive.

ABC News’ John Santucci contributed to this report.

Oct 06, 2020, 12:11 PM EDT

DC-area lawmakers want White House to share its total number of positive tests

Nine House Democrats representing Washington, D.C. and the city's Maryland and Virginia suburbs are calling on the White House to share more information about the White House coronavirus outbreak, which they're calling "out of control."

The lawmakers, whose constituents work at the White House, want the White House to disclose the date of Trump's last negative test, the total number of positive cases, and cooperate with local and state health departments' contact tracing efforts. 

"This is no time for publicity stunts that put people at risk, or for playing down the seriousness of this pandemic," they wrote in a statement Tuesday. "The American people will never trust the Administration to keep them safe if the White House cannot protect its own staff."

ABC News' Ben Siegel contributed to this report.

Oct 06, 2020, 11:46 AM EDT

Facebook removes Trump's post for inflating flu death numbers

Facebook on Tuesday removed a post by the president, and Twitter tagged the post as misleading, after Trump incorrectly cited flu death numbers in a comparison to COVID-19.

Trump, the morning after returning from the hospital to be treated for COVID-19, tweeted, "Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!" he wrote.

A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement, "We remove incorrect information about the severity of COVID-19, and have now removed this post."

Twitter left the message up but covered it up with a message that said it violated the platform’s rules “about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19."

According to CDC estimates, the annual flu death toll has ranged between 12,000 and 61,000 since 2010.

Trump also told Bob Woodward earlier this year that coronavirus is "more deadly than even your strenuous flu."

Trump used a similar comparison early on in the pandemic, before death totals began to rapidly rise.

On March 9, Trump tweeted, "So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!"

As of Tuesday, over 210,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

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