For his first campaign rally since being declared negative for Covid-19, Donald Trump wanted to show America that he was back.
” Here we are! He cried at the start of his rally in Sanford, Florida. Just a week after being released from the hospital where he was being treated for the coronavirus, Mr. Trump took the stage throwing masks, like a rock star handing out autographs. But he didn’t wear a mask himself. And no one else either, except a small minority, in the ultra-compact crowd of thousands of people who have come to witness the Republican return to the field of the campaign.
With the same backhand, Donald Trump wanted to show that he could overcome the pandemic – which has killed more than 210,000 people in the United States – and the polls which give him the loser against Democratic candidate Joe Biden on November 3 .
“They say that I am immune,” he boasted, referring to his contamination with Covid. “I feel so powerful”. “We love you, we love you! », Answered the crowd.
The Republican President’s meeting was designed to project the image of a force of nature unaffected by the laws that apply to ordinary people.
The White House, a hotbed of contamination
Unlike his previous trips – even those during a pandemic – all Secret Service agents responsible for his security and the staff around him were masked. While awaiting the President’s motorcade on the rain-soaked tarmac at Andrews Army Base, staff could be seen frantically cleaning and wiping surfaces in the press booth of the Presidential Air Force One plane.
And for good reason: this trip was at the heart of many tensions. Over the past ten days, the White House has become a hotbed of Covid-19 contamination, reflecting Donald Trump’s hands-off approach to the pandemic in the United States, by far the most affected country in the world.
“The real polls”
The president claims to enjoy a “protective” aura since he says he has recovered from the symptoms of Covid-19.
According to Donald Trump, his special powers also make him invincible against his septuagenarian rival. He mocks Joe Biden’s campaign schedule, which he considers not very intense, his wearing of the mask and his cough. “He has no more strength, he has no more energy,” hammered the president-candidate in front of the crowd of his supporters. “He is probably the worst presidential candidate in history.”
But the polls do not seem to confirm this theory: they regularly predict a defeat for Donald Trump against Joe Biden, which in certain scenarios would even be bitter.
These polls indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans are angry with the way Donald Trump has handled the pandemic. They ensure that women and the elderly – two key groups of voters – abandon the president.
But these opinion polls were also swept aside by Donald Trump. “These are the real polls! He said, contemplating the tide of red caps marked “Make America Great Again”, the slogan of the Trump campaign. And the crowd cheered him on.
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr