The coronavirus crisis was a focus for the president in Florida, who defended his actions amid the pandemic.
President Donald Trump held his first rally since recovering from COVID-19 in Florida on Monday, claiming he felt good enough to “kiss everyone in that audience” and defending his track record in dealing with the coronavirus crisis. Trump has spoken of how good he feels in recent days despite having contracted the virus, while also claiming to now have immunity—though there have been questions over such a claim. The commander-in-chief’s physician said in a memo the president had tested negative for COVID-19 on consecutive days, with Trump expressing his pleasure at having overcome the illness. “It does give you a good feeling when you can beat something and now they say you’re immune,” he said. “I don’t know how long for, some people say for life, some say for four months, every time think about it, every time I hear them, it gets shorter, and shorter, and shorter, because they want it to be as bad as possible.” Prior to this, commenting on how he felt, he said: “I’ll walk into that audience. I’ll walk in there, I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women and everybody. I’ll just give ya a big fat kiss.” COVID-19 continued to be a focus of his speech, in which he defended his response to the crisis. Trump again spoke of his decision to block travel from China then Europe, saying this saved “millions of lives.” However, the true impact of these actions is unclear, while his China travel ban was also in part questioned as it did not fully close off travel with the nation. Foreign nationals who had traveled to China within 14 days prior to coming to the U.S. were mostly barred, save for exceptions for people such as immediate family of U.S. citizens, while Americans returning from China were allowed into the nation following an enhanced screening process. At the rally, Trump criticized Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who he insisted was against the action of barring travel from China—though the Democrat’s campaign has said he did back this move as it had been supported by science.
