‘I’ll kiss everyone’: US President Donald Trump addresses Florida campaign rally after COVID-19 recovery
Donald Trump offered to give his supporters a ‘big fat kiss’ at his first campaign rally since his recovery from coronavirus, saying he feels ‘powerful’.
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Donald Trump said he would kiss “the guys and the beautiful women” in the audience of a Florida campaign rally, as he declared he was feeling “powerful” following treatment for COVID-19.
It was the US President’s first rally after being treated for the deadly virus in hospital, and came after his White House physician said he tested negative on “consecutive days” and was “not infectious to others”.
“I went through it (COVID-19), now they say I am immune, I feel so powerful,” Mr Trump said.
“I will kiss everyone in that audience. I will kiss the guys and the beautiful women. I will just give you a big fat kiss.”
Mr Trump said his clean bill of health meant he didn’t have to “be locked up in my basement”, but he “wouldn’t have allowed it to happen anyway”.
“When you are the president, you can’t lock yourself in a basement. It’s risky, but you’ve got to get out,” Mr Trump.
He also said he was “not an old person” and is in “such great shape”.
The US President said there were “great things” happening in regards to a COVID-19 vaccine and claimed “a million vaccine doses” would be ready by the end of the year.
He said they would “ be delivered by the military and they are waiting for final approval”.
Mr Trump also took a jab at Democrats over their fears there would not be a peaceful transfer of power if they were to win at the November election.
“They say, ‘we want to know if you will agree to a friendly transfer of power’. For four years they have been trying to get us out of office,” he said.
He added: “We’ll take care of it after the election,” after claiming there was evidence the Democrats had spied on his campaign at the 2016 election and that former president Barack Obama and Joe Biden “knew everything”.
Before Mr Trump arrived at the rally, White House physician Sean Conley said in a memo: “I can share with you that he tested negative (to COVID-19), on consecutive days, using the Abbot BinaxNOW antigen card.”
The doctor said the negative determination had taken into account a number of measurements, and not just the rapid test alone.
Antigen tests are less sensitive than the more traditional PCR diagnostic test to low levels of virus.
Mr Conley, who does not specify the days on which the tests were performed, nevertheless added that the data allowed the medical team to conclude “that the president is not infectious to others.”
‘I BEAT THIS CRAZY HORRIBLE CHINA VIRUS’
Mr Trump asked his campaign to get him back on the campaign trail immediately and every single day between now and the November election, according to a report.
According to the New York Post, Mr Trump’s re-election team, according to Axios, is working to schedule events for the remainder of the 2020 election cycle.
Mr Trump was forced to start campaigning virtually after being diagnosed with coronavirus earlier this month.
After his diagnosis, the US President was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, where he was treated for three days before returning to the White House.
White House physician Sean Conley announced Saturday that Mr Trump was no longer contagious.
Mr Trump has continued to campaign virtually since returning home, though he hosted an in-person campaign event Saturday on the White House South Lawn, which he attended in a socially distanced capacity from the Truman Balcony.
The balcony, which is accessible from the executive residence, overlooks the South Lawn.
The president has been eager to get back out on the road, as he told Fox News over the weekend.
“I beat this crazy horrible China virus … I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I’m in great shape. And I have to tell you I feel fantastically. I really feel good,” he told the network.
In a statement to The Post on his return to the campaign trail, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said, “The president has personal experience with COVID and understands what people are going through.”
CONFIRMATION OF TRUMP PICK UNDERWAY
It comes as the first day of confirmation hearings for the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court got underway before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Ms Barrett, 48, was nominated last month to fill the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
On Monday, US time, Ms Barrett released her opening remarks prior to hearings, thanking US President Trump “for entrusting me with this profound responsibility.”
The judge and her seven children arrived wearing COVID-19 face masks as protesters gathered outside the Capitol.
Multiple activists were arrested for blocking an entrance to one building.
Some protesters held signs for the Revolutionary Communist Party, a small group known for chanting “America was never great!” during political protests.
Nearby, a dozen women in red capes and white bonnets posed near the Supreme Court, dressed as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale.
Supporters of Ms Barrett also showed up.
Before speaking to the 22 members of the powerful committee, as well as the nation, the potential Supreme Court justice praised the liberal icon she was nominated to replace.
“I have been nominated to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat, but no one will ever take her place,” she wrote.
“I will be forever grateful for the path she marked and the life she led,” she continued, recalling Ginsburg’s own remark that their powerful positions could “only happen in America.”
TOP US DOCTOR SLAMS TRUMP
Top government scientist Anthony Fauci said that an ad aired by Donald Trump’s re-election campaign was edited to make him seem to endorse the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement to CNN on Sunday local time.
The 30-second campaign ad cites Mr Trump’s personal experience with the virus – “President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, and so is America,” it says – before including a brief clip in which Fauci appears to praise the president’s response to the pandemic.
“I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more,” Fauci is shown as saying, creating the clear impression he is referring to Trump.
But a complete clip of Fauci’s comments, made during an interview in March with Fox News, shows the doctor saying: “I have been devoting almost full time on this. I’m down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. It’s every single day. So, I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.”
In his statement, Fauci added, “The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.”
As a leading member of the White House task force on the coronavirus, the 79-year-old doctor has frequently had to walk a fine line in attempting to clarify – or correct – the president’s often incautious assertions about the disease or the treatments and vaccines being developed against COVID-19.
TRUMP SAYS HE’S NOW ‘IMMUNE’ TO COVID
Donald Trump has claimed that he no longer has the coronavirus and claimed that he is now “immune” from the disease as he prepares to rejoin the campaign trail.
“Yes, and not only that, it seems like I’m immune, so I can go way out of a basement, which I would have done anyway,” Mr Trump said during an interview with Fox News on Sunday (local time).
It comes a day after Mr Trump gave a speech to supporters from the White House balcony and after his doctor said the US President was “no longer” a risk to spread the coronavirus to others.
But according to Fox News, the White House has not yet confirmed that Mr Trump has tested negative for the virus.
There’s evidence that reinfection is unlikely for at least three months even for people who had a mild case of COVID-19. But it is unclear how much longer that lasts.
“The president is in very good shape to fight the battles,” Mr Trump said.
“I beat this crazy horrible China virus … I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I’m in great shape. And I have to tell you I feel fantastically. I really feel good.”
Mr Trump made the comments the day after his first public appearance since being diagnosed with the coronavirus. The interview is a continuation of a virtual media blitz the president has been engaged in this week as he recovers.
The president also addressed criticism of his Saturday event.
“The White House doctors are the best … they said totally free of spreading, there’s no spread,” Trump said, adding that he was on the White House balcony for his Saturday event. There was some mask-wearing at the event but very little social distancing among the attendees on Saturday, similar to the highly-criticised Rose Garden event announcing Mr Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. There’s been speculation that the Barrett announcement was a “superspreader.”
Mr Trump also defended his record from the initial stages of the pandemic, noting that he was initially criticised for barring travel from China in January.
“It should have never happened, it’s China’s fault,” Mr Trump said, saying there were some predictions that more than two million people could die and the US death count is now above 200,000.
“There are those that say we did a phenomenal job,” Mr Trump said.
GATES SAYS TRUMP WRONG TO CALL HIS THERAPY A ‘CURE’
Bill Gates has dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that the monoclonal antibodies treatment he received is a “cure” for COVID-19.
‘The word ‘cure’ is inappropriate because it won’t work for everyone. But of all the therapeutics, this is the most promising,” The Microsoft founder said on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday local time.
WATCH: @BillGates explains how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been “working with the companies doing antibodies†research for Covid-19 treatment. #MTP
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 11, 2020
Gates: “We’re partnered with Eli Lilly, who with Regeneron, has been the fastest to get these antibodies ready.†pic.twitter.com/P5Fvi12WCF