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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump appeared without a mask before hundreds of supporters on Saturday (October 10) at his first public event since contracting COVID-19, declaring from the balcony of the White House: “I feel great.”
“I want you to know that our nation is going to defeat this terrible virus from China,” Trump told the crowd of hundreds of people downstairs, most in masks but with very little social distancing at the outdoor event.
“It’s going away, it’s going away,” Trump said of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and seriously undermined his chances of winning a second term on November 3.
“Get out there and vote, and I love you,” Trump told the crowd, a sea of red “MAGA” caps, who chanted “four more years” throughout his 18-minute speech on the subject of law and the order.
“Right now I haven’t been on medication, you know, probably eight hours ago,” Trump told Fox News Friday night, the first on-camera interview since his diagnosis and three nights. hospitalization.
Trump plans to hold a rally Monday in the critical Florida state, a decision criticized as “reckless” by his election rival Joe Biden, in light of concerns that the president could still be contagious.
Undeterred, the Trump campaign announced two more rallies next week: on the Pennsylvania battlefield on Tuesday and in Iowa on Wednesday.
READ: Trump to Resume Campaign In Person Less Than 2 Weeks After Contracting COVID-19
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And on Saturday, dozens of red-headed “MAGA” Trump sympathizers were anxiously gathering outside the White House to hear an open-air speech that is expected to focus on law enforcement in black communities.
“Trump is the type of president, who if he stands up to defend a certain cause, he defends it,” said one of them, a US military man of Mexican descent named Daniel, who said he wanted to show his support for the police. .
For months, following the lead of a president who mostly avoided, and sometimes scoffed at, the wearing of masks, masked White House advisers were rarely seen inside the West Wing.
Since Trump and his wife Melania tested positive, the mood has changed. A source with knowledge of planning for Saturday’s event said all guests will need to wear a mask to hear Trump give his address from a balcony.
In the crowd that lined up outside, some were masked but many were not.
A similar meeting two weeks ago to announce the nomination of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has been singled out as a likely source for many of the dozens of positive cases linked to the White House since.
Anthony Fauci, the respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has referred to it as a “super-spreading event.”
Many questions remain unanswered about the White House outbreak, with more than a dozen cases registered in the president’s inner circle, including his spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany.
“When was the president’s last negative COVID test?” asked Pete Buttigieg, a former contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, now tipped for a prominent role in a Biden administration if he defeats Trump on November 3.
READ: Pelosi presents 25th Amendment proposal, questions Trump’s aptitude
213,000 AMERICANS DEAD
Trump’s greater responsibility, overwhelming public dissatisfaction with his handling of the pandemic, has once again become the main theme of the campaign thanks to his own infection, and cases are on the rise again across the country.
The seven-day average of new daily cases recorded between October 3-9 (47,184) was the highest since the week of August 13-19 with an average of 47,530 new cases, according to an AFP analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
“More than 213,000 Americans have died from this virus, and the harsh truth is it didn’t have to happen this way,” Biden tweeted on Saturday.
Former Vice President Barack Obama, who is currently nearly 10 points ahead in national polls and has solidified his leadership in key states on the battlefield, continues to campaign at his own pace.
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In the Republican field, meanwhile, there is increasingly palpable concern about the state of the contest, with some party heavyweights openly raising the alarm.
“If on Election Day people are angry and hopeless and depressed … I think it could be a terrible choice,” Senator Ted Cruz warned this week.
“I think we could lose the White House and both houses of Congress, that it could be a bloodbath of the proportions of Watergate.”
Trump insists the pollsters are wrong and is counting the days until he can return to the campaign.
“The president does a great job when he speaks directly to the American people,” his spokesman Hogan Gidley said on Fox News Saturday, “without the filter of the mainstream media.”
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