‘Feeling great!’: Trump gets back on the campaign trail just days after COVID-19 scare
Just days after being diagnosed with COVID-19, Donald Trump is back on the hustings, holding an event from the White House balcony.
Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail after his COVID-19 battle, saying he is “feeling great” and urging supporters at the White House to help him stop America from becoming “a socialist nation.”
In his first live campaign-style event after being diagnosed with the virus, Mr Trump addressed around 500 supporters from the balcony at the White House, opening with the words “I’m feeling great.”
The president looked healthy and did not cough or appear short of breath despite being diagnosed with the virus just ten days ago. The only obvious concession to his health was that his speech lasted just 20 minutes, far shorter than his usual campaign speeches.
Having been cleared by his doctors to hold public events, Mr Trump will now resume his campaign rallies and will hold his first comeback rally in Florida on Tuesday (AEDT).
The rally is expected to mark the start of a three week blitz of campaign events for the president as he seeks to close the gap with his Democrat opponent Joe Biden, who is leading in national polls by a sizeable 9.6 points.
The event at the White House was called an official event, rather than a campaign one, but Mr Trump used it to make his pitch to voters on familiar themes of law and order, health care, the economy and the dangers posed by left-wing Democrats.
Mr Trump also made a strong pitch to African American and Latino voters, with polls showing he is struggling to attract the votes of both groups.
“No one is hurt more by the left-wing war on cops than African-Americans,” Mr Trump said. “Last year, in just four Democrat-run cities, over 1,000 African-Americans were murdered as a result of violent crime. And the riots, looting, and arson disproportionately hurt Black and Latino communities.”
“Sleepy Joe Biden has betrayed black and Latino Americans,’ he said, saying that these high levels of violent crime had occurred in Democrat run cities.
“We cannot allow our country to become a socialist nation,’ the president said. He said Mr Biden’s left wing agenda was “beyond socialism” and was possibly approaching communism.
On the economy, he said the US was experiencing “the fastest economic recovery in history” and that American had seen “the smallest economic contraction of any major nation in the world.”
By contrast, he said a Biden administration “wants to lock everything down” again and place the economic recovery at risk.
He accused Mr Biden of wanting open borders and warned that the Democrat would “trap” the US into more foreign wars as happened during the Obama-Biden administration.
Mr Trump said he wanted to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which he claimed had been a disaster for the nation.
The president claimed that the polls were improving for him in many states including Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Nevada.
In fact, polls in many of these states — including Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada — show Mr Biden increasing his lead over the president.
According to the RCP poll average, in battleground states, Mr Biden is leading Mr Trump by 3.7 points in Florida, 7.1 points in Pennsylvania, 5.5 points in Wisconsin, 6.7 points in Michigan, 2.7 points in Arizona and 1.4 points in North Carolina.
Republican strategists are hoping that Mr Trump can generate some much-needed momentum with his return to the campaign trail.
They also hope that conservative voters will be energised by the confirmation hearing for conservative Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Barrett which begins in Washington on Tuesday (AEDT).
The second presidential debate, which was to have taken place in Florida this week, has been cancelled after Mr Trump said he would not agree to the demand by the Commission on Presidential Debates that it be a virtual debate because of the president’s COVID-19 infection.
However, what was to have been the third debate, scheduled for October 22 in Nashville, is still taking place at this stage.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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