'Feeling great': Trump seeks campaign comeback from Covid-19
12 October, 2020
President Donald Trump rallied a huge selection of cheering supporters for a campaign-style comeback event at the White House Saturday, jumping back into the election race nine days after being stopped in his tracks by Covid-19.
"I am feeling great!" Trump declared as he stepped out to a White House balcony -- tugging off his mask to address the crowd below, the majority of them masked under their red "Make America Great Again" hats, but with little social distancing.
"Get out and vote -- and I love you," Trump told supporters, who chanted back "USA" and "Four more years" through the entire address lasting slightly below 20 minutes.
Badly trailing his 77-year-old Democratic rival Joe Biden in the polls significantly less than four weeks from Election Day, Trump has been counting the times until he can hit the ground again.
The White House doctor announced late Saturday the president was "no longer considered a transmission risk."
Tests showed there is "no longer evidence of actively replicating virus" and that Trump's viral load was "decreasing," Sean Conley said -- though he didn't declare that the president is currently virus-free.
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that, for mild or moderate Covid-19 cases, isolation and precautions could be discontinued 10 days after symptom onset, as soon as patients have already been fever free for 24 hours. However, the severe nature of Trump's illness has not been confirmed.
Saturday's event set the stage for a full-fledged campaign rally Monday in Florida -- followed immediately by two more in battleground Pennsylvania Tuesday and Iowa Wednesday.
Biden has slammed as "reckless" Trump's determination to rally huge crowds during the pandemic -- however the president has brushed the concerns aside, insisting America gets the upper hand against the virus despite a death toll of 213,000 and rising.
"I want you to learn our nation will defeat this terrible China virus," Trump said.
"It will disappear. It really is disappearing."
"We are making powerful therapies and drugs, and we are healing the sick and we are likely to recover, and the vaccine is developing rapidly, in record time you may already know."
'The hard truth'
While Trump, 74, has declared himself recovered -- and appeared smiling and energetic at the White House -- doubts linger over his health, with the president's doctor accused of too little transparency with the public.
Trump's biggest liability -- overwhelming public dissatisfaction over his handling of the pandemic -- has returned as the headline problem of the campaign because of his own infection, with cases again increasing nationwide.
The seven-day average of new daily cases recorded between October 3 and 9 -- 47,184 -- was the highest because the week of August 13 to 19, according to an AFP analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
"Over 213,000 Americans have died out of this virus -- and the hard truth is it didn't have to happen in this manner," Biden tweeted Saturday.
For months, taking their cue from a president who mostly shunned and sometimes mocked the wearing of masks, White House advisors were rarely seen masked within the West Wing.
Since Trump and his wife Melania tested positive, the mood has shifted and mask wearing was compulsory at Saturday's event.
A similar gathering two weeks ago, to announce the nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, has been designated as a likely way to obtain many of the a large number of positive cases since from the White House.
Anthony Fauci, the respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, has described it as a "superspreader event."
Many questions remain unanswered about the White House outbreak, with an increase of than a dozen cases recorded in the president's inner circle, including his spokeswoman 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 should he defeat Trump on November 3.
Biden, vice president under Barack Obama, happens to be near 10 points ahead in national polls with a good lead in key battlegrounds.
And in the Republican camp, there is increasingly palpable concern about the state of the race.
"If on Election Day persons are angry and they've given up hope and they are depressed... I think it may be an awful election," Senator Ted Cruz warned this week.
"I think we're able to lose the White House and both houses of Congress, that maybe it's a bloodbath of Watergate proportions."
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