Donald Trump says he feels better and delivers campaign address from hospital
Last night, despite battling coronavirus, the President managed to turn a hospital room into a substitute campaign rally.
Donald Trump will always be Donald Trump. He is clearly missing the energy of a crowd and the adrenaline of the campaign trail.
So he created his own address to the American people - pushed out via Twitter - and told them that his mission was still “to make America great again.”
He also claimed he was feeling better and was raring to go.
“I feel much better now. We’re working hard to get me all the way back. I have to be back, because we still have to make America great again. We’ve done an awfully good job of that, but we still have steps to go and we have to finish that job. And I’ll be back, I think I’ll be back soon.”
The power of his Twitter feed is impossible to ignore. Within an hour, the video had ten million views.
He looked well and was wearing a jacket with an open-neck shirt. Flags were strategically placed behind him.
Late on Saturday night, a new medical update was released. The President’s doctors stated: “He spent most of the day conducting business and has been up and moving about the medical suite without difficulty.
"While not out of the woods yet, the team remains cautiously optimistic.”
But more problematic is the contradictory information flowing from the White House about the President’s symptoms.
While the hospital doctors are claiming that he is recovering well, the White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, suggested the President was very ill on Thursday and that the next 48 hours would be critical.
That seems to be supported by reports - not officially confirmed - that by Friday the President was receiving supplemental oxygen at the White House.
We also know that, most unusually, he was given an experiment drug, Regeneron. That would imply his doctors thought they needed to take a calculated risk.
But the Presidential video shows that he still has his mind focused on the campaign.
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Awkwardly, having mocked many people for being ill - most notably Hillary Clinton four years ago - he is now having to address the Americans from a hospital room.
The President can only explain the inconsistency by claiming his trip to hospital was in fact courageous. He says he is fighting the virus on behalf of all Covid patients.
"I had to be out front and – this is America... I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say: ‘Hey, whatever happens happens.’ I can’t do that. We have to confront problems... it’s happened to millions of people all over the world, and I’m fighting for them. We’re going to beat this coronavirus, or whatever you want to call it, and we’re going to beat it soundly."
This doesn’t sound like a strategy that is going to work in persuading undecided voters. But as he wakes up from his second night in a military hospital, fatigued but defiant, it may be the only argument he can marshal.
The Democrats will never be openly confident of winning next month. Even now they feel that Trump is a wounded but dangerous opponent.
But privately they believe they are 30 days from victory - unless there are more October surprises to come.