Arizona forced to shut down state legislature after Giuliani tests Covid positive

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani tested positive for the coronavirus

Rudy Giuliani, the personal defence attorney of President Donald Trump, is the latest in a long string of his associates to have tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting the Arizona state legislature to close for a week after he spent hours there in a bid to persuade the lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election results.

 Spokespersons for the state House and Senate said that the two chambers would be closed this week out of caution “for recent cases and concerns relating to Covid-19”. 

Mr Trump had announced in a tweet on Sunday that Mr Giuliani has tested positive for the virus. “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!” he said. 

The 76-year-old former New York mayor was at Georgetown University Medical Center, according to a person who was aware of his condition.

Mr Giuliani is the public face of Mr Trump’s floundering efforts to overturn his 3 November election loss to Democratic president-elect Joe Biden, through fast unravelling legal challenges in several key states.  

The two people previously leading the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, both tested positive for Covid in November and had to step back from the frontline.

Mr Giuliani has spent the past few weeks travelling around the country, attending hearings with crowds of people, indoors and maskless, in multiple states, and he himself is almost never pictured wearing a mask.  In Arizona, Giuliani spent almost 10 hours with Republican legislators at a Phoenix hotel on Monday.

At a hearing on Wednesday before the Michigan legislature about alleged voter fraud, where the campaign trotted out a number of unsubstantiated allegations, Mr Giuliani even asked a witness seated next to him to remove her mask, because he said he couldn’t hear her. He was seated a few feet away and unmasked himself.  

It’s the latest in a string of coronavirus outbreaks that have dogged the White House. The president, alongside his chief of staff Mark Meadows, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, campaign adviser Mr Lewandowski, and housing secretary Ben Carson have all been hit by the virus.