BREAKING NEWS: Trump Administration to exhume the body of John Trump.

Senior officials in the Trump Administration revealed plans today to exhume the body of John George Trump, the late uncle of President Donald Trump.

Officials stated the purpose for the exhumation of John Trump--who passed away in 1985--was so that he could appear alongside the President during his daily press briefings relating to the administration's response to the global COVID-19 epidemic.

"Our best hope is that we will be able to successfully re-animate the corpse," one senior official stated. "Ideally to the point where he would actually be able to walk and talk, and preferably in complete sentences as opposed to one-word grunts if at all possible. But in the event we are not able to re-animate the corpse, we would still like to wheel out his body during the briefings in order to re-assure the world that the administration is surrounding itself with the most capable minds science has to offer today."

"Or, if not that, at least the most capable minds that existed before February 1985," the official added.

It is not quite clear how exactly a re-animated John Trump would have any sort of input into the current crisis. John Trump earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then subsequently served on the MIT faculty for nearly three decades. However, he had no education whatsoever in the area of epidemiology or any field of medicine, leading some to question how much of an impact his presence might actually serve.

"Our hope is that by virtue of being dead for 35 years, John Trump will have learned considerable amounts about biology due to witnessing his own body decompose before his very eyes," the official said. "Consider it a learning by osmosis type of situation, if you will."

The President himself displayed considerable enthusiasm for the plan when pressed for comment.

"My uncle was considered a super-genius by many, many people," Donald Trump said at his most recent briefing session. "In fact, many people tell me I inherited all his smarts. I may in fact be even more of a genius than he was, if you could believe that."

However, privately, some within the administration have displayed skepticism that even if the administration is able to successfully re-animate John Trump that he would actually endorse any of the proposals being offered by his nephew.

"I would say that the chances of an undead John Trump agreeing with the President that the virus will completely disappear within a matter of a couple of weeks is less than 50-50," one White House official stated on the condition of anonymity. "And when I say 'less than 50-50,' I actually mean '0.00001 percent,' if that."

With that in mind, some have mulled measures to ensure that Zombie John Trump will toe the administration line; ideas discussed have included that John Trump only be afforded protection against angry, torch-wielding villagers if he is sufficiently supportive of the President.

"He may be the President's uncle," one administration member said. "And he may also be a rotting corpse whose revivification would truly be a miracle of modern science. But we cannot afford a situation where he does not express the highest degree of confidence in the President's policies."

DETAILS AT ELEVEN.