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(Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
WASHINGTON, DC – United States President Donald Trump will deliver a public address at the White House on Saturday for the first time since testing positive for COVID-19, and will also hold a rally in Florida next week in an attempt to relaunch his shaky re-election campaign with only 25 days left.
Knocked out of the election campaign by his hospitalization for three nights last week, the president is in the midst of a frantic bid to catch up with rising Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
On Friday, during a widespread media blitz, he falsely claimed that Covid-19 now has a cure.
He also revealed that he had been told he was close to death at the worst moment of his fight with the virus, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and seriously undermined his chances of winning a second term on November 3.
Saturday’s speech, which a senior administration official said would be on Trump’s favorite “law and order” topic, 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 stand on the balcony, the official said, confirming the US media reports.
And on Monday, Trump will take another big step by holding a rally in Sanford, in the crucial electoral state of Florida, his campaign said.
The events come despite continuing questions about how sick Trump was last week and how complete his recovery is now, and White House officials are refusing to answer basic questions, including the date the president contracted the virus for the first time and has tested negative since.
‘Better than a vaccine’
On Friday, Trump gave a marathon interview to right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh in which he said the experimental cocktail of Regeneron antibodies he took as part of therapeutic treatment was “a cure.”
It is “a total game changer” and “better than a vaccine,” he said.
In fact, there is no cure and there is still no approved vaccine for the coronavirus.
Trump repeatedly claimed that he feels fine and has been backed up by statements from the presidential physician, Sean Conley.
But in his interview in Limbaugh, Trump suggested for the first time that he had been close to death, had it not been for the therapeutic drugs.
“I’m talking to you today about that. I could have been a bad victim, ”he said, referring to his friends who had died from Covid-19.
Trump said doctors later told him, “You were entering a very bad phase.”
“You know what that means,” said the president.
According to Conley, Trump is now ready for a “safe return to public participation” starting Saturday.
Battle for attention
Trump has tried to fill the void left by his forced absence from the election campaign by making back-to-back appearances in friendly media.
He spoke extensively on Fox twice on Thursday and was due to return to Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight show Friday night, appearing from the White House, where he will undergo what the network described as an on-air “medical evaluation” conducted remotely by Fox. contributor Doctor Marc Siegel.
Biden, however, is already picking up the pace of travel, stopping in Nevada on Friday after going to Arizona on Thursday.
Polls show that Biden largely leads key demographics, including women and the elderly, leading analysts increasingly to talk of a possible landslide victory.
Trump’s greatest responsibility, overwhelming public dissatisfaction with his handling of the coronavirus crisis, has once again been the main theme of the campaign thanks to the president’s own infection.
In addition to the pressure, the Congressional Democrats who control the House of Representatives unveiled plans for a commission to investigate a president’s physical and mental fitness for the job, a move clearly intended to attack Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was time to examine Trump’s “dissociation from reality.”
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