For months, President Donald Trump seeded and nurtured a culture of coronavirus denial. Early Friday, the coronavirus proved his strategy does not work.
From calling the whole thing a hoax to claiming it would go away in the warm weather to dismissing it as milder than the flu to discouraging mask use among his staff to mocking Democratic challenger Joe Biden for wearing one, Trump has made downplaying the disease a cornerstone of his reelection effort.
Trump even pushed ahead with a campaign fundraiser at his New Jersey golf resort Thursday, despite knowing that a top aide with whom he spent many hours in recent days had just tested positive — a direct violation of CDC protocols that potentially infected dozens of high-dollar Republican donors.
It was only after midnight Friday, after 7 million Americans had already contracted the disease and some 208,000 had died, did Trump make the announcement that could finally force a course correction: “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” Trump wrote in a 12:54 a.m. Twitter post. | 
