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Donald Trump has delivered a speech in front of his supporters at the White House in his first public appearance since he was hospitalized.
The event was officially a “peaceful protest,” but critics said it looked a lot like a Trump campaign rally.
The president, who says he no longer takes Covid-19 drugs, told the crowd that he was “feeling great.”
The White House has not provided an update on the president’s health since Thursday.
It is unclear whether the president is still contagious after his three-day hospital stay with Covid-19.
His rival in next month’s presidential election, Joe Biden, has been campaigning in Pennsylvania. He said that his “heart goes out to all those families who have lost a loved one to the coronavirus.”
The poll suggests that Biden has a single-digit lead over Trump and an ABC News / Ipsos poll found that only 35% of Americans approved of how Trump has handled the coronavirus crisis.
More than 210,000 Americans are known to have died from Covid-19.
- How is Donald Trump doing in the polls?
- Why are infections on the rise again in the US?
What did Trump say at the White House event?
Saturday’s meeting at the White House was organized in part by a foundation called “Blexit,” which aims to get black and Latino voters to support the Republican party.
The president, who removed his mask when he began to speak, lashed out at Biden and described the Democrat’s program as “beyond socialism; communist, that’s correct.” In general, Biden is considered to be a moderate Democrat.
Trump repeated his earlier claim that he had done more for the black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln, a claim that the BBC has previously verified.
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While this was not an official campaign event, it touched on many of his key talking points, such as the economy, the border wall, and postal voting.
The president also falsely claimed that his planned wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico would soon be completed.
Trump said the coronavirus was “disappearing.” Shortly before delivering his speech, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 58,302 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Why were there concerns about the event?
Questions about safety arose after a meeting to present Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court resulted in at least 11 people testing positive for Covid-19, including the president. America’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, described it as “a wide-spread event.”
Senior Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said it was “morally bankrupt” for the president to hold “another super broadcast rally” at the White House..
The White House said ahead of Saturday’s event that attendees will have to undergo a temperature check and wear face masks, and they were encouraged to practice social distancing.
However, footage from the event showed several hundred people close together.
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Reuters
While most of the crowd wore masks, there seemed to be little social distancing
The president’s campaign team has also said it plans to attend a “big rally” in Florida, a battleground state in next month’s presidential election, on Monday, followed by trips to Pennsylvania and Iowa.
Biden expressed disbelief at the president’s plans to hold rallies and criticized the Trump administration’s lax stance on wearing masks as reckless.
“He wouldn’t show up unless he has a mask on and can distance himself,” Biden said, speaking while campaigning in Las Vegas on Friday.
Meanwhile, ethicists say hosting political events at the White House, in addition to being against a long-standing convention in the United States, could violate federal law.
The Hatch Act, which dates back to 1939, prohibits federal employees from participating in campaign activities while on duty. While the president and vice president are exempt, most White House employees are not.
Recover lost time
Analysis by Lebo Diseko, BBC News, Washington
The White House says this was not a campaign event, but it looked and sounded remarkably like one.
Supporters were on the south lawn, yelling “Four more years! Four more years!” when the president came out to speak.
Almost everyone wore red Maga (Make America Great Again) caps and blue Blexit T-shirts.
Black and Latino voters could be key in battle states like Michigan and Florida; both won by small percentage points in 2016.
The president seemed much more himself than in recent days.
This was him saying “I’m back” and restarting a campaign that has effectively stalled since his Covid diagnosis on October 1.
With the elections only a few weeks away, he is ready to make up for lost time.
Where is Biden campaigning today?
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Reuters
Joe Biden (right) visited a plumbing company in Erie, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
While Biden appears ahead in national polls, the US presidential elections are determined in practice in key states where both candidates have a chance of winning, rather than by the total number of votes won, as Hillary Clinton discovered. at his expense in 2016.
As part of his strategy to woo disgruntled Democratic voters, Biden has been campaigning in the parts of the country that fueled President Trump’s 2016 election victory.
In that spirit, Biden has traveled to Erie County, Pennsylvania.
After going from Democrat to Republican in 2016, Erie is seen as one of the most important changing counties in one of the most important changing states.
Unlike Trump, Biden will not hold any public events.
Speaking at a small-scale event at a plumbing company, the candidate said, “We are facing real challenges right now; the last thing we need is a president who will exacerbate them.”
What’s the latest on the president’s health?
On Thursday, the president’s doctor, Sean Conley, said it would be safe for him to return to public engagements on Saturday. [10 October] since it would mark “day 10” from his diagnosis on Thursday, October 1.
Following his diagnosis, Trump spent three nights in the hospital and was treated with the steroid dexamethasone, the antiviral drug remdesivir and a cocktail of antibodies made by the Regeneron company.
- The latest on Trump’s health in six charts
- What do we know about Trump’s medical treatment?
The CDC recommends self-isolation for at least 10 days after the first symptoms of the coronavirus appear, with a more serious illness, such as one requiring hospital treatment, potentially taking up to 20 days.
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