President Trump has resumed public events less than one week after he left Walter Reed hospital, where he was treated for COVID-19. Trump has repeatedly declared himself “immune” to COVID-19 in recent days and has also said he can’t spread the disease, with no evidence.
President Donald Trump: “I beat this crazy, horrible China virus. And it also gives you immunity. I mean, it does give you immunity. Even the — the people that just cannot accept anything, I mean, they just don’t want to accept anything. No, so, we — I passed the highest test.”
On Saturday, Trump held a small campaign rally on the South Lawn of the White House, where he spoke, unmasked, from the balcony to a group which included many Black and Latinx supporters. ABC News reports conservative activist Candace Owens paid travel and lodging costs for members of her so-called BLEXIT group to attend Saturday’s rally. Trump is scheduled to appear at a rally at the Orlando Sanford International Airport in Florida today, and his campaign is planning large rallies in Pennsylvania and Iowa later in the week. This comes as Minnesota’s Department of Health identified nine cases of COVID-19 stemming from Trump’s rally in Bemidji last month — including one person who was hospitalized in an intensive care unit.
Ahead of Trump’s release from Walter Reed last week, The New York Times reports the president proposed an idea to his aides for a stunt: Trump would walk past photographers appearing frail and weak, only to rip open his button-down shirt, revealing a Superman T-shirt underneath. On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a bill that would create a congressional panel to judge the president’s capacity to carry out the job, invoking the 25th Amendment, which lays out the line of presidential succession.