WASHINGTON, D.C. — In his first interview since being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, President Donald Trump said he feels “perfect,” doesn’t believe he’s contagious and is ready to return to the campaign trail immediately.
“I think I’m better, to a point where I’d love to do a rally tonight,” Trump told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning. “I wanted to do one last night.”
Moments later, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, announced the president would hold a rally Oct. 15. Trump was scheduled to debate Democratic nominee Joe Biden that night but backed out of the event after the Commission on Presidential Debates changed it to a virtual format due to safety concerns related to Trump’s diagnosis.
Trump also made some comments that are sure to infuriate public health experts. He suggested that people can’t do anything to protect themselves from the virus and cast more doubt on the effectiveness of wearing masks.
“No matter how good the security, you’re not going to protect yourself from this thing with just your standard anything, unless you just literally don’t come out – and even those people found out. Did you see in NYC, the most heavily locked down place, the people who caught it the most were the people who were going into their houses and apartments?”
The president was likely referring to comments New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made in May about two-thirds of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the state at the time having said they remained largely at home before becoming infected. The findings, however, did not say those people never left their homes and did not go into detail about the habits of those they live with.
“You catch this thing,” the president said. “A lot of people caught it. Look, you have the governor of Virginia [Ralph Northam] – he wore a mask all the time. You never see the guy without a mask. He catches it. You had senators who wore masks all the time. Thom Tillis … Mr. Mask, we call him. He caught it. You catch this thing. It’s a particle of dust. It’s tiny stuff.”
While studies show wearing a mask can reduce the risk of becoming infected, the greater value is for others around an individual – some of whom could be unwitting asymptomatic carriers of the virus – to have their faces covered. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends masks “to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the mask coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice.”
And Tillis has said he made a mistake by removing his mask inside the White House after attending the Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony announcing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. Tillis sat in the second row of the event wearing a mask, but few others around him had their faces covered.
Dozens of people who work at or recently visited the White House have contracted COVID-19, including a number of guests at the Rose Garden event.
Trump, who has continues to hold large rallies where few masks are worn and social distancing is not practiced, added that he figured he might catch the virus at some point because he meets a lot of people as president. He gave an example of meeting with Gold Star families, claiming they would often get too close to him while telling stories of their loved ones who died in a military conflict.
“I met with Gold Star families. I didn’t want to cancel that,” Trump said. “But they all came in, and they all talk about their son and daughter and father. And, you know, they all came up to me, and they tell me a story.”
“I can’t back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,’” he said, adding that some of these family members “come within an inch of my face sometimes."
“They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it," he added.
White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah later denied that Trump said he got COVID-19 from Gold Star families: "His point was merely that in the timeframe that he was potentially exposed, there were a number of different venues he'd been at and individuals he had interacted with that it could have come from – and by no means are blaming anyone who was present"
Farah went on to say that "based on contact tracing, the data we have, we don't think it arose from that event."
Repeating a sentiment he made upon being released from the hospital earlier this week, the president said of the virus, “And remember, when you catch it, you get better, and then you’re immune.” He made no mention of the more than 211,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19.
Trump, who spent three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, credited an experimental antibody cocktail by Regeneron for his recovery but then made a bizarre claim that “I think I would have done it fine without drugs. You know, you don’t really need drugs.”
And he joked that “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen, and I’m extremely young.”