Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 three days before his first debate against Joe Biden, the former president’s fourth and last chief of staff has revealed in a new book.

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows gestures at a Make America Great Again event at Gastonia Municipal Airport on 21 October 2020.
Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before Capitol attack committee

Mark Meadows also writes that though he knew each candidate was required “to test negative for the virus within seventy two hours of the start time … Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there”.

Trump, Meadows says in the book, returned a negative result from a different test shortly after the positive.

Nonetheless, the stunning revelation of an unreported positive test follows a year of speculation about whether Trump, then 74 years old, had the potentially deadly virus when he faced Biden, 77, in Cleveland on 29 September – and what danger that might have presented.