Three weeks before the election, Trump invites his followers to the White House in what was a controversial use for a campaign event before knowing the result of a COVID-19 test that determined he was not contagious.
President Donald Trump resumed his election campaign Saturday, just one week after testing positive for a potentially deadly disease, as he sought to compensate for his confinement and campaigned under the effect of a steroid-based treatment, with a more than disconcerting offensive of videos and multiple media statements.
A COVID-19 outbreak in the White House infected more than 30 people, reduced activities and filled the West Wing with anxiety. The next presidential debate was canceled. Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi initiated a 25th Amendment process that determines whether a president is able to discharge his duties if found to be physically or mentally unfit. The Senate is preparing for a historic forced confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court nominee which may change the course of social progress in the U.S.
In Congress, Trump’s erratic messages have led to a stalemate on the relief package necessary to mitigate the effects of the largest economic collapse in the U.S. since the Great Depression. The FBI aborted a plot by armed militiamen to kidnap Michigan`s governor and promote a “civil war.” The country continues to suffer mercilessly from a pandemic that has already killed more than 214,000 Americans, a number that continues to rise in 40 states and is claiming nearly 1,000 lives every day. Both parties are preparing for an eventual emergency which would ensue if the results of the election are disputed.
This is how the citizens of the first world power are heading toward an election in which their leaders, with opposing opinions on practically everything, agree on describing this as the most important election of their lives.
Not even the most creative screenwriter could imagine the chaos that has befallen American politics only three weeks before the election. This Saturday, in a controversial use of the White House for a campaign event, before he even knew the results of a COVID-19 test which determined he wasn’t contagious, Trump invited a group of supporters, most African American and Latino — precisely the people most impacted by the pandemic — to the White House and addressed them from a White House balcony without wearing a mask. “The left`s war against the police hurts nobody more than African Americans,” the president said about the ongoing debate on racial justice which was triggered in May following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.*
Until this Saturday, the president had not been seen in public since he returned to the White House on Monday after being released from the hospital where he was admitted for three days due to COVID-19 related complications. Frustrated with fading reelection prospects, Trump sought to remain active in the public sphere with furious tweets, a video in which he called COVID-19 “a blessing from God,” and a series of telephone interviews with sympathetic media channels.
This Thursday, against a total lack of transparency about his condition, while contradicting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on COVID-19 and leaving the medical community aghast over the risk Trump is exposing himself and others to, the White House doctor announced that Trump, 74, would be able to “return to public engagements” on Saturday. On Thursday evening, the president conducted a telephone interview on a show hosted by one of his biggest fans, Sean Hannity, and announced he intended to hold a rally on Saturday in Florida and on Sunday in Pennsylvania.
A change of plans emerged on Friday afternoon. The rally in Florida would be on Monday, and a rally would be held at the White House on Saturday. On that same Friday evening, he would undergo a “medical evaluation” by videoconference with a “doctor from Fox” on Tucker Carlson’s program.
In his many television interviews, one of which lasted 55 minutes, Trump made many absurd claims. Regarding the Democrats’ environmental plans, he said, “I mean they literally want to take buildings down and rebuild them with tiny little windows.” He stated that California, which is governed by Democrats, will have to ration water “because they send millions of gallons of water out to sea, out to the Pacific, because they want to take care of certain little tiny fish that aren’t doing very well without water.”
He even pressed his loyal attorney general, William Barr, to indict his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and former President Barack Obama for something he defined as the “greatest political crime in the history of our country.” He then added, “I’m back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young.”
After testing positive for COVID-19, Trump was treated with various medications, some of which are only experimental, according to his physicians. Ranging from Regeneron’s antibody cocktail, which Trump promised to supply “hundreds of thousands of doses” of without charge, to the controversial remdesivir. He also took dexamethasone, a steroid with common side effects that include anxiety, agitation, mood swings and irritability, and which the president explained on Thursday to Fox News that he was still taking.
On Friday, the president proceeded with a media blitzkrieg. He gave a radio interview that lasted no less than two hours in which he warned Iran that “If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are gonna do things to you that have never been done before.” That same night, Fox broadcast an interview that it claimed was recorded on the same day Trump said he was “medication free.”
Trump’s behavior led Democrats to initiate the process for applying the 25th Amendment on Friday, albeit with little chance of success. The 25th Amendment regulates the transfer of power in the event a president dies, resigns or is incapacitated. “This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters, but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents,” Pelosi said.
Meanwhile, the president and his acolytes in the media continue to warn, without any evidence, that the election is going to be manipulated and that mail-in voting which is said to forecast a Democratic victory, is not trustworthy. Unusually, the president has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if the Democrats win. Yet the operation against the governor of Michigan, who was harshly criticized by Trump for measures she took to fight the pandemic, is evidence of the real dangers brought by the unprecedented tension that has been dominating the campaign. Both parties’ legal teams are preparing to venture into uncharted territory: that of a crisis which could unravel if close voting results prevent the announcement of a winner on election night.
*Editor’s note: Although accurately translated, the quoted remark could not be independently verified.
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