Nor are his statements consistent with some events at the White House. If Meadows was truly confident that the Sept. 26 test was a false positive, it’s hard to explain why Trump, at a Sept. 28 outdoor presentation to discuss COVID, was positioned at a podium far away from Pence and other speakers. As PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor points out, this was an extremely unusual arrangement.

So it’s clear that Meadows is lying about what he knew and when he knew it. But is it possible the test was in fact a false positive, even if the White House wasn’t sure of it? There are at least three good reasons to reject that theory. One is that it can’t explain why some people who were with Trump before the debate—but not afterward—later got sick or tested positive. Another reason is that it doesn’t fit the chronology of Trump’s symptoms. According to studies cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the median time between exposure to the virus and development of symptoms is four to five days. After that, the median time between onset of symptoms and hospitalization is about three to six days. In the book, Meadows describes COVID-like symptoms in Trump before and after the Sept. 29 debate. Trump was hospitalized on Oct. 2. That timeline fits a positive test on Sept. 26. It’s completely incompatible with an accurate negative test after Sept. 29.