Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner test negative for coronavirus – White House

White House staff and advisers are being tested urgently after president was forced into quarantine

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kusher have tested negative for Covid-19, less than a day after Donald and Melania Trump were sent into quarantine after testing positive.

Their result comes as White House aides and advisers are urgently tested, with vice president Mike Pence and his wife also receiving negative results.

The Trump administration has increasingly been in crisis mode since the president’s close adviser Hope Hicks tested positive for the coronavirus after showing symptoms on Wednesday. She had travelled with various administration staff, including Mr Kushner and Ms Trump, to a presidential campaign rally in Minnesota.

Ms Hicks reportedly isolated from the rest of the contingent aboard Air Force One on their way back to Washington, DC, but the president and first lady’s results were quarantined anyway before their test results were known.

The news of Mr Trump’s diagnosis has upended the presidential campaign with only six and a half weeks to go until election day. He will no longer be able to hold the in-person campaign rallies that he considers his forte, and may well have to debate Joe Biden virtually if their next encounter goes ahead in two weeks’ time.

In a tweet, Ms Trump wrote: “Praying for the swift recovery of my father and Melania and for all those impacted by COVID-19. As they fight this together, the President will continue to fight for the people of this great country.”

Mr Kushner has played a central role in the administration’s pandemic response, early on taking charge of a team meant to procure millions of units of personal protective equipment, including masks for essential workers.

A former employee of his task force recently went public with a devastating account of its performance, saying he was “distressed and disturbed” by the volunteer team’s complete lack of experience in public health or logistics. He claimed that employees had to use their personal laptops for what was in fact front-line federal government work, and said he had been pressured to create a data model “fudging the predicted number of fatalities”.