President Trump Hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center After Testing Positive for Coronavirus; Kellyanne Conway Tweets She is Tested Positive for Coronavirus; White House Officials Have Serious Concerns About President Trump's Health; Physicians Released New Updates From President Trump's Condition; Trump Campaign Manager Tests Positive for Coronavirus.
SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It is hard to social distance in that space, but we do -- try to do what we can, kind of outside. But you're right. We counted about 150 people in the Rose Garden for that event, and as we saw, very few masks, absolute no social distancing at all. And everyone -- you know, this was a happy occasion for folks in the audience. So there were lots of greetings and handshaking. People were congregating and socializing and mingling.</s>DON LEMON, CNN HOST: People are still shaking hands at the White House?</s>KIM: They were.</s>LEMON: I haven't shaken anybody's hands since probably February or March. I mean --</s>KIM: Yeah. I saw a couple of elbow touches or what not. But, yes, there was a lot of contact, there was a lot of movement, and it just seemed like just a normal time except for the handful of masks that we did see in the audience.</s>LEMON: So, you think you're fine? That's what we want to know.</s>KIM: I hope I'm fine. I feel fine.</s>LEMON: We hope you're fine, too. I'm just checking. I appreciate both of you joining us. Be well, both of you, and be safe. Thank you so much.</s>ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You're welcome.</s>KIM: Thanks for having me.</s>LEMON: This is "CNN Tonight." I'm Don Lemon. The major breaking news, the president of the United States hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center tonight after testing positive for coronavirus. President Trump said to be experiencing fatigue and fever. And Kellyanne Conway tweeting tonight that she is tested positive for coronavirus. She attended the packed Rose Garden event last weekend where the president nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. And she was also part of the president's debate prep team. There are lots to get to throughout the broadcast this evening. I want to get right to CNN's White House correspondents Jeremy Diamond and John Harwood. Welcome back, Jeremy. Good evening to you, John. Jeremy, you were at Walter Reed tonight. What do we know about the president's condition?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, we haven't gotten many updates since that memo, that second memo from Dr. Sean Conley, who is the physician to the president. And in that memo, Don, this happened shortly before the president entered Marine One and was brought here to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be admitted as a patient for several days. In that memo, Don, the president's doctor says that he has been fatigued. We have also learned separately, of course, that the president has had a fever throughout the day, and we understand that he has been dealing with some of those other moderate symptoms of the coronavirus. But, Don, to watch the White House's, you know, the shifting timeline that has happened, specifically if you look at that nearly 18-hour window between when the president and his physician announced around 1:00 a.m. that the president had indeed tested positive for coronavirus, the president's doctor at that time saying that the president was doing well and that he expected that the president would undergo his recovery, not here at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, but at the White House itself. And then in the morning, you have the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, answering a few questions from reporters. At that time, he said that the president was experiencing moderate symptoms, but that he was very energetic and in great spirits. And then, of course, the letter, the latest letter from the physician saying that the president was indeed fatigued, and then we saw the president brought here to Walter Reed. And so it obviously raises the question, Don, of what happened in that 18-hour period and to what extent did the president's symptoms, you know, really developed to a point where his team, his doctors, felt that he needed to be brought to the hospital. But not only that, but for the president himself to agree with those recommendations and to feel that indeed, you know, the benefits of coming to the hospital far outweighed the negative publicity that he might receive and frankly the image that it would bring on to him, an image of weakness rather than an image of strength that he often likes to project.</s>LEMON: So John, in less than 24 hours after revealing he tested positive for coronavirus, Trump is now hospitalized, but all day, they said he was just fatigued. What are we supposed to believe?</s>JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't have good information. And the challenge is that this has never been a White House that had much interest in telling the truth from the very beginning of the administration. And we've seen that play out this week. Remember, the news that led to the president disclosing his diagnosis was not put out by the White House. It was broken by Bloomberg and then confirmed by CNN and others last night. The president knew and his aides knew Thursday morning that Hope Hicks had felt unwell. She quarantined on the way back from Minnesota on Air Force One. And they went out and had an event at Bedminster yesterday without telling the participants in the event and without telling the American people what happened. When they came back, the participants in the event thought the president looked exhausted. They were questioning whether he was well. The White House didn't say anything. The news broke about Hope Hicks.</s>HARWOOD: The president went on Hannity, affirmed that Hope had tested positive. He said, well, Melania and I have gotten tested. We don't know if we have it or not. We'll see. We'll get test back. Pretty clear at that time, from the way that he was speaking and the subsequent disclosure a couple of hours later, that he had gotten some information back. Otherwise, he would have -- had he gotten a negative test, he would have said it had been negative. Then today, we have gotten a series of tiny morsels of information dribbled out, nothing in a very forthcoming way. Don, you were talking in the last hour about driving your Volkswagen beetle as a high school student when Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. I also had a Volkswagen beetle in 1981. I was a young reporter. I went down to George Washington University Hospital and sat in the auditorium where they had eminent doctors joining Larry Speakes, the deputy White House press secretary, in briefing the press on what had happened to the president with a lot of detail. We didn't get any of that today. And we still don't have a good visibility into exactly -- to what degree the president's condition has deteriorated during the course of the day, to what degree -- was it just a little worse than they let on in the beginning? It obviously is serious when a 74-year-old man who has coronavirus has a fever, has some symptoms, and goes to the hospital. But we don't really know how serious it is. Unless they start a more proactive process of putting credible medical authorities out there, we are not going to know.</s>LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it. I need to get to our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, now. I have a whole lot of questions for him. Sanjay, it is good to see you again. So, so many people who have been near this president tested positive for coronavirus. Do you expect this to keep growing?</s>SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, I do. You know, when we look at the sort of average number of contacts that someone has during a period between the time they're exposed to the time they get diagnosed, you know, during COVID time, maybe 35 contacts, I think that's what Professor Bromage who you had on before talks about. The president, five states, Washington, D.C., several events, it is looking like this Saturday event in particular was a very concerning event for possibly being a super spreader event. So, yeah, and that's what makes it challenging, Don, right? It makes it challenging to go find those people. Was this a close contact? How far away were you? How long were you there? Was anybody masked? All those sorts of questions. You can see how laborious a task it is to try and contact trace like this. But the answer to your question, yes, I think there will be more people still.</s>LEMON: I know that you can't diagnose someone from watching a video, Sanjay. I'm at least that smart, right? But what do you think of what you saw from the president's condition today considering what we have also learned about his symptoms?</s>GUPTA: Well, you know, he is obviously -- he gave that little talk, did that little video speech ahead of time. It was very short. I think maybe 20 seconds. And then he walked to the chopper. He was able to walk off. So, I mean, you know, that is all you can really tell. He's obviously doesn't require any assistance. It seems like he was doing OK. But it is hard to know with these types of symptoms. Fever, fatigue, you know, that's the sort of symptoms I've heard about. I think when you hear that in somebody who is maybe getting a little bit worse, even if they're still mild or moderate, if they're progressing in the wrong direction, that's when you start to get a little nervous. He's considered a vulnerable patient. He has got predisposing risk factors for this disease. At that point, you may be making the decision to say, hey, look, he needs to be in a place where he can get the type of care he needs, especially if he starts to worsen even more.</s>LEMON: We are told the president is taking an experimental drug not approved by the FDA. We talked about it a bit last hour. What does that tell you about the doctors' level of concern for the president, Sanjay?</s>GUPTA: I was a little surprised by this. The Regeneron folks have been on CCN today a couple of times talking about this monoclonal antibody therapy. There is a lot of enthusiasm around this therapy and a lot of promise. There has been -- this type of therapy has been used for other infections. But there is just not really any data around this. This isn't even emergency-use authorized, Don. That is how early this is. So, you know, I think that this may be a promising treatment. But to your question, you got to be thinking. You're in the White House. You're saying the president is doing well. That is the first thing that we heard. But there were these conversations that were happening maybe around that same time saying, we think it may be reasonable to try an unproven, very early, experimental therapy on the president, as well.</s>GUPTA: I think it speaks to the level of concern. I think there was an increasing level of concern about the president. We don't know whether that therapy has done anything for him or it may be too early to even know yet. But I think it does speak to the level of concern in the White House and maybe prompted that decision ultimately to get him over to the hospital.</s>LEMON: What about the people now who have come out and said, you know, they tested negative? How often should they be tested and what should their level of concern be?</s>GUPTA: Yeah. So this is such a critical point, right, Don? We're talking about this microcosm of the white house. You can think about this for the country as a whole. First of all, if you've had exposure to someone with known COVID, you had close contact with that person, you need to be quarantined, irrespective of whether or not you get a test and the test is negative. You need to be quarantined because you have to act at that point like you have the virus. And the whole point of putting someone like that in the quarantine is you can start to significantly diminish the trajectory of this pandemic. If you don't go into quarantine and then subsequently find that you were also shedding virus and spreading virus, that's how the pandemic worsens. So, I don't place a lot of stock into that negative test that they give. A lot of people are going to say, I am negative after the event, I am good to go. You can test positive up to 14 days in some cases afterward. It averages around five days. But that first negative test, which a lot of people are getting today or after these particular events, I don't think you can really do anything with that information.</s>LEMON: Yeah. It should not -- it shouldn't give people false hope. Hopefully they're not positive.</s>GUPTA: Right.</s>LEMON: But just out of precaution, continue to be tested. Thank you, doctor. I appreciate it. Get some sleep, if you can. Try not to talk to that Cuomo guy at midnight. He will keep you up all night. I know --</s>LEMON: He likes to talk and talk and talk. Thank you very much, doctor. I appreciate it. So I want to get to Mark McKinnon. He is a former adviser to President George W. Bush and John -- presidents George W. Bush and John McCain. Well, he wasn't a president, but President George W. Bush and John McCain, and the executive producer of "The Circus." It has been a long week, Mark. Also, Jeff Mason is here. Jeff Mason the White House correspondent for Reuters. I am so happy to have both of you, gentlemen, on this evening. Mark, I'm going to start with you. You know what I'm going to talk about. First, I got to talk about Kellyanne Conway testing positive. She was at the Rose Garden event. You were at the White House today. Is everyone worried? How did it feel to be there today?</s>MARK MCKINNON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER ADVISER TO GEORGE W. BUSH AND JOHN MCCAIN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF "THE CIRCUS": It felt spooky, Don. You could just sense the anxiety and tension, particularly among younger staffers at the White House. They just seem kind -- a lot of the younger staffers were wearing masks that you hadn't seen them wear them before. You just got the sense that their world had really been rocked. We saw Mark Meadows come out without a mask. Larry Kudlow, to his credit, he did put one on. But it's spooky. It was what it felt like, Don. Then to see the chopper leave, Marine One fly out of the White House to Walter Reed, it was really a chilling scene.</s>LEMON: You said they were wearing masks for the first time. So when you go, you typically see people not wearing masks?</s>MCKINNON: Yeah. I mean, most of the time, you do not see people at the White House wearing masks. There was definitely, you know, it was a marked difference today.</s>LEMON: Yeah. Jeff, you cover the White House. Do you see people wearing masks?</s>JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: No. I mean, and the fact that some people have found religion (ph) on masks, now in October, it's really hard to fathom. I think back on the history of this over the last several months. This isn't the first time there has been the start of what appeared to be a mini outbreak within the White House. Several months ago, Vice President Pence's spokeswoman, Katie Miller, came down with the coronavirus. So did a military valet. At that time, the White House put in some more strict rules and regulations for people. People were to wear masks except when they were sitting at their desks.</s>LEMON: But Jeff, those strategies seem to be all about protecting the president through testing. But they didn't mandate masks. So, you know, over and over again, we saw zero social distancing and not wearing masks. So, obviously their strategy didn't work.</s>MASON: They've gone up and down on masks. Of course, that has been set through an ethos that the president has admitted in terms of his own feelings about masks. But they did have a phase where they were taking things seriously. And then as the president wanted to show that the country was coming back, that it was time for normalcy again, despite the fact the coronavirus case numbers continue to go up, they stopped, and you didn't see the people coming in to the press room from the press staff wearing masks anymore.</s>MASON: And as Mark was just saying, in the offices, the lower press and upper press offices, reporters can go into, staff were weren't wearing masks either. It just didn't have to be that way then. And it shouldn't have taken the president of the United States coming down with coronavirus for that to shift now.</s>MCKINNON: Don, if i can just jump in. It's very fundamental. It's really about masks. It is all about examples leading from the top. And Donald Trump clearly, his strategy and his thinking that by wearing a mask is showing a sign of weakness. That's why nobody at that ceremony last Saturday was wearing a mask. That's why his supporters don't wear masks at his rallies. It's all about him. We heard about people like the Schlapps going into that Saturday meeting where they had masks on before, but as soon as they got in, they took them off, because I think people don't want to be seen -- it's pressure to show strength, they think. But I tell you, the sign of weakness for people without masks, it's a sign of weakness to the disease, and it goes after people without masks.</s>LEMON: Jeff, the chief of staff thinks that -- he said today, well, we expect more positive tests. What do you think? Is he right?</s>MASON: Well, it seems logical that there would be more positive tests. We're just seeing kind of a slow trickle of those coming out tonight with the latest development from Kellyanne Conway and the others who are at that Saturday event. Yesterday, as John Harwood was saying earlier, the first sort of inkling we had of this happening was the news about Hope Hicks, but she was just the first one. We don't know at this point and I'm not sure we ever will know who brought the initial exposure in. If it was -- it's hard to say. But the point is there were a lot of people and there are a lot of people both at that event, but otherwise who come through the White House gates and have exposure to each other and then those people have exposure to the president.</s>LEMON: Yeah. And listen. There are a lot of folks who are close to the president, including his children, his son-in-law, whatever. His son- in-law was on the plane.</s>MASON: Jared Kushner.</s>LEMON: Yeah, Jared Kushner was on the plane with Hope Hicks. And then, you know, Jared Kushner is married to his daughter. They are together with their children. I mean, it is just all so sad and unbelievable. Mark, can we talk about the campaigns, OK? Biden's campaign is pulling the negative ads while President Trump is hospitalized. Trump's campaign isn't doing that. Should they?</s>MCKINNON: I think it would be -- if I were advising a campaign, I would certainly ask the campaign to pull the ads. That's a very simple thing to do. I think it is a right move for the Biden campaign. I just think everybody should pause. At least for the very near future, this should be about the health of our country, the health of our president. Let us not make a political -- can we just take 24 hours and pause, so we can get a sense of what is happening with the president, Don? That is part of the problem. We don't know exactly. This hasn't been a transparent administration. This is where you start to pay the cost of that. If you don't have the credibility, how do we believe the information that we are getting from people who came out on the driveway today and say, oh, it's only a mild case. Are we supposed to trust them? The only thing we do know for a fact today, Don, is that when Donald Trump left the White House, he became another person. He got added to the 585,000 people in America who have now been hospitalized with the coronavirus.</s>LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it. Sunday night, Showtime, "The Circus." Mark McKinnon, we'll be watching.</s>MCKINNON: Yeah. The whole show.</s>LEMON: Thank you. With President Trump hospitalized, the Pentagon is looking to assure the public about national security. The White House says there's no transfer of power. What happened in other countries whose leaders come down with the virus? Fareed Zakaria fills us in, next. Plus, a lot of questions about potential exposure at Tuesday's presidential debate. Can you believe that was just on Tuesday? I'll speak with someone in the audience.