Mike Pence’s camp releases trickily worded statement that only adds more fuel to coronavirus speculation
Last night Mike Pence showed his face in public for the first time since the White House coronavirus outbreak exploded, and Pence was suddenly sporting pink eye – a common symptom of coronavirus. Then today Pence canceled his campaign events scheduled for tomorrow and returned home to Washington DC.
This set off a ton of questions and speculation among the media and the public about whether Mike Pence has coronavirus. In response, Pence’s press secretary issued this statement to the media: “Nobody’s sick. There’s no positive tests.” Yeah, okay, that wording is a little bit bizarre.
Politicians always announce the best-sounding thing they can announce. So if Mike Pence had tested negative today, his camp would have announced that he tested negative. On the other hand, “There’s no positive tests” – in addition to being grammatically strange – is a giveaway that Pence wasn’t tested today. That way, his people could announce that he didn’t test positive.
Our guess is that Mike Pence and his team saw the reaction to his pink eye last night and they concluded they need to get him out of public sight for at least a day or two, in the hope his eyes clear up. But no one’s falling for it. In fact Pence is handling this whole thing in such ham fisted fashion, he’s turning it into a huge scandal whether his pink eye is actually coronavirus or not.
