WASHINGTON, Oct 10, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump will give a
public speech at the White House Saturday for the first time since testing
positive for Covid-19, as he prepares a rapid return to the campaign trail
just three weeks before the election.
The 74-year-old commander-in-chief has also announced a Florida rally on
Monday in an attempt to relaunch his stumbling reelection campaign against
surging Democratic rival Joe Biden, who called the president’s behavior
“reckless.”
Seeking to project strength and improved health, Trump had refused to
participate in next week’s scheduled debate after organizers shifted it to an
online format out of coronavirus concerns.
On Friday the Commission on Presidential Debates made it official, saying
next Thursday’s debate is scrapped, leaving an October 22 event the final
Trump-Biden showdown before election day on November 3.
That prompted accusations of bias from Trump campaign communications
director Tim Murtaugh, who said “there is no medical reason to stop” the
October 15 debate from proceeding.
Knocked off the campaign trail by his three-night hospitalization last
week, the president is in the midst of a frenetic bid to catch Biden.
On Friday, during an extended media blitz, Trump falsely claimed that
Covid-19 now has a cure.
He also revealed that he’d been told he was near death at the worst of his
bout with the virus, which has killed more than 213,000 Americans and
severely dented his chances of winning a second term.
Saturday’s speech, which a senior administration official said would be on
Trump’s favored theme of “law and order,” will give him a chance to dispel
lingering doubts about his health.
The crowd will be on the South Lawn of the White House, while the president
will speak from the balcony.
A source with knowledge of the planning said all attendees will be required
to wear masks and have their temperature checked.
– ‘Reckless’ conduct –
On Monday, Trump will take another major step by holding a rally in a
crucial battleground state.
“Will be in Sanford, Florida on Monday for a very BIG RALLY!” Trump
tweeted.
The events come despite continued questions over how sick Trump was and how
complete his recovery is now, with White House officials refusing to answer
basic queries including when the president first contracted the virus and
whether he has tested negative since.
After Trump spent months mocking Biden for staying at home during the
pandemic, it is Biden who has barnstormed swing states this week.
He visited Arizona Thursday and campaigned Friday in Nevada. Trump won both
states in 2016 but they are now narrowly tilting Democratic in polls.
At a drive-in style event in Las Vegas, Biden slammed the president.
“His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis, the destabilizing
effect it’s having on our government, is unconscionable,” Biden said.
As he boarded his campaign plane he offered a message for those attending
Trump’s public events: “Good luck. I wouldn’t show up unless you had a mask
and were distanced.”
On Friday, Trump gave a marathon interview to right-wing talk radio host
Rush Limbaugh in which he said the experimental Regeneron antibody cocktail
that he took as part of therapeutic treatment was “a cure.”
It’s “a total game changer” and “better than a vaccine,” he said.
In fact, there is no cure and still no approved vaccine for the
coronavirus.
– ‘Medication-free’ –
Later Friday he appeared in his first televised interview since he was
diagnosed with the virus, telling Fox’s Tucker Carlson show he is now
“medication-free.”
In what the White House called an on-air “medical evaluation” the president
told Fox contributor doctor Marc Siegel he has been tested again for Covid-
19, saying he did not know the “numbers” but “I know I’m at either the bottom
of the scale or free.”
It was not clear when the interview was filmed.
Trump has repeatedly asserted that he feels fine, and he has been backed up
by statements from presidential physician Sean Conley.
But in his Limbaugh interview, Trump suggested for the first time that he
had been close to death, had it not been for his aggressive regimen of
therapeutic drugs.
“I’m talking to you today because of it. I could have been a bad victim,”
he said, adding that doctors told him: “You were going into a very bad
phase.”
Polls show Biden leads heavily in key demographics including women and the
elderly, prompting analysts to talk increasingly of a possible landslide
victory.
Trump’s biggest liability — overwhelming public dissatisfaction over his
handling of the pandemic — has returned as the headline issue of the
campaign thanks to his own infection.
Adding to the pressure, Democrats who control the House of Representatives
unveiled plans for a commission to investigate a president’s fitness for the
job — a move clearly meant to jab at Trump.