A GOP State Senator Learned He's COVID Positive During a Meeting With Trump

A state senator trying to help President Donald Trump overturn election results in Pennsylvania, which Trump lost by more than 81,000 votes, had to leave a meeting with the president at the White House because he tested positive for COVID-19.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, left the White House meeting last Wednesday along with his son and his son’s friend after finding out all three had tested positive, according to the Associated Press. 

Trump reportedly told Mastriano and his guests would be attended to by White House medical personnel, and the meeting proceeded on without him. Mastriano’s positive test and White House visit came on the same day he helped lead a four-hour-plus public meeting in a hotel ballroom which included Trump’s lead election litigation lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and which Mastriano would later falsely claim “revealed numerous electoral irregularities in Pennsylvania.” 

“Everything is at stake with what happened during this election cycle,” Mastriano said prior to the start of the meeting, according to CBS 21. “Everything the republic is at stake. This is no game for us.”

Pennsylvania Democrats were furious that Mastriano had tested positive and apparently hadn’t told anyone in the opposition, which is quickly becoming a running theme among the Pennsylvania GOP. Earlier this month, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Fielder filed a formal complaint alleging unsafe working conditions in the Pennsylvania House.

“The PA House and Senate GOP have consistently put their Democratic colleagues and Capitol staff at risk with their reckless behavior. GOP members have tested positive, and they only tell Republicans. They refuse to wear masks, even in small committee rooms,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta said in a statement following Mastriano’s positive test. “I wish Sen. Mastriano and anyone else impacted a speedy recovery and pray that they model behavior like mask wearing that keeps us all safe.”

The avenues for Mastriano and Trump’s efforts to deliver the state to the president in open defiance of the will of Pennsylvania voters are quickly closing. On Friday, Mastriano filed a resolution directing Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar to decertify the certification of the results. “Pennsylvanians want transparency and accountability with our electoral process,” Mastriano said in a statement. 

The legislative session for Pennsylvania legislators, however, expires today, meaning both Mastriano’s bill and its House counterpart will both die. And on Saturday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously dismissed yet another lawsuit from Pennsylvania Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, seeking to overturn the results. In the opinion, the Supreme Court castigated the GOP for waiting until after the election to attempt to overturn universal mail-in voting.

“It is beyond cavil that Petitioners failed to act with due diligence in presenting the instant claim,” the opinion said. “Equally clear is the substantial prejudice arising from Petitioners’ failure to institute promptly a facial challenge to the mail-in voting statutory scheme, as such inaction would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters.”