New York: In a show of medical brinkmanship, US President Donald Trump made his first public appearance at a White House event, 10 days after he was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus.
During Saturday’s event at the South Lawn, titled “Peaceful Protest in Support of Law and Order”, the President addressed the attendants, many who did not wear masks or were socially distancing, from the Blue Room Balcony.
Trump wore a face mask but took it off later when he started addressing the gathering.
Trump, who has downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic to the nation and himself, showed no signs of the disease, but uncharacteristically his speech was about 18 minutes, as opposed to his previous 60-minute speeches at other events and rallies.
The US President spoke with a strong voice and his breathing appeared steady with no lingering signs of the disease except for a bandage on his right hand, probably from the medicines he received intravenously during his stay at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three nights.
The gathering was an outreach to the African-American community by Trump who has been accused by his critics of being hostile to minorities, if not racist.
The president hopes to attract them with his criminal justice reform undoing some of the harsh sentencing requirements that his Democratic rival Joe Biden was involved in drafting that came down disproportionately hard on members of that community.
His campaign also points to Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s record as a prosecutor who jailed large numbers of African-Americans for minor crimes. (IANS)
