It was shared by those who knew him that the president was conscious of the risks from contagion. Years earlier, Newsweek had described a series of interviews Trump had given on The Howard Stern Show, where Trump wryly described himself as a “germaphobe” who “washes his hands frequently throughout the day and needed to drink through a straw because he wants to avoid contamination.”4 It seemed clear to me that the president didn’t want to get COVID and that he was led to believe that the White House testing protocols would keep him from being infected.
