Trump hits campaign trail on the radio
Donald Trump spent two hours holding court on a conservative radio phone-in show as he sought to dispel concerns about his health following coronavirus. The US president tackled everything from Joe Biden and the Nov 3 election to forest fires and Europe’s more “explosive” trees. Mr Trump is likely to return to the campaign trail on Monday after new polling for The Telegraph showed Mr Biden increasing his lead. Mr Trump claimed the Democrat challenger was “in a daze”.
DONALD TRUMP yesterday dispelled concerns about his energy levels since catching coronavirus as he spent two hours conducting a phone-in interview with one of his favourite conservative talk show hosts.
The US president discussed everything from Joe Biden and the choice facing America at the election on Nov 3 to basketball and the lack of forest fires in Europe, despite the Continent having the more “explosive” trees.
Mr Trump’s boisterous conversation with Rush Limbaugh, the Right-wing radio presenter to whom he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year, helped show that he had recovered from Covid-19 and was ready to hit the campaign trail.
The president had pushed to hold rallies as early as today and his official physician had cleared him for public engagements over the weekend, though Fox News reported his first event was likely to be held on Monday.
The political i mportance of Mr Trump’s return to campaigning is underscored by new polling for The Daily Telegraph conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies that shows Mr Biden, the Democratic nominee, is pulling away in key swing states.
In four of the six states which Mr Trump won by the narrowest margins at the 2016 election, Mr Biden has increased his lead since the president’s Covid-19 positive test and his combative performance in their first debate.
The findings – a snapshot of voter thinking rather than a forecast of the result come November – suggest that Mr Trump is losing ground at just the moment he will be hoping to narrow the gap. On Thursday evening, speculation about his health in the wake of his Covid-19 diagnosis resurfaced as he had to cough at a number of points during an interview on Fox News.
On Friday, Mr Trump admitted to Mr Limbaugh that his doctors told him at one point he was going into a “very bad phase” in his battle with coronavirus, suggesting the seriousness of his illness was much greater than the public were told at the time.
However, he said he was now feeling great, except for “that little lingering thing” that follows some illnesses. He dismissed concerns about his cough, saying his voice was “perfect”.
Mr Trump repeatedly lashed out at Mr Biden, claiming he was “out of it” and “in a daze”, even bizarrely suggesting at one point that the Democratic nominee was reading answers to questions “off a computer”.
On forest fires, he said: “You know in Europe, you go there and they have forest nations. They call them Austria and different places. They don’t have the woods burning down and their trees are more explosive than ours.”
Mr Trump did not commit to a virtual presidential debate on Thursday, which he has said he would boycott unless it became an in-person event.
♦ One of the Democratic Party’s most senior figures yesterday criticised the UK’S system for approving a Covid-19 vaccine, suggesting that the safety process is not as rigorous as in the US.
Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, told a press conference that people must be “very careful” about the UK drive to approve a vaccine, suggesting that the US Food and Drug Administration had a tougher screening criteria.