Herman Cain, the onetime Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, has died from COVID-19, according to a statement on his website.
“Herman Cain – our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us – has passed away,” Dan Calabrese, the editor of Cain’s website, wrote in a post Thursday morning.
The 74-year-old, who served as a co-chair of Black Voices for Trump and was considered by Trump for a post on the Federal Reserve Board, was recently set to launch a weekly TV show with the conservative cable channel Newsmax TV. A post on Newsmax.com points out that Cain attended Trump’s June rally in Tulsa, his first in-person rally since the beginning of the pandemic, just ten days before being hospitalized. But the post also notes that it’s unclear where and when Cain became infected, citing “a whirlwind travel schedule in June.”
Cain tested positive for COVID-19 on June 29, accounting to a statement released earlier this month. He was hospitalized two days later. On Monday, a tweet from his verified Twitter account sounded optimistic. Cain, the tweet said, is “still in the hospital being treated with oxygen for his lungs. In the meantime, the doctors say his other organs and systems are strong.”
