WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump was to give a public speech at the White House yesterday for the first time since testing positive for COVID-19, as he prepares a rapid return to the campaign trail just three weeks before the election. The 74-year-old commander-in-chief has also announced a Florida rally tomorrow in an attempt to relaunch his stumbling reelection campaign against surging Democratic rival Joe Biden, who called the president's behavior "reckless".

Seeking to project strength and improved health, Trump had refused to participate in this week's scheduled debate after organizers shifted it to an online format out of coronavirus concerns. On Friday the Commission on Presidential Debates made it official, saying Thursday's debate is scrapped, leaving an Oct 22 event the final Trump-Biden showdown before election day on Nov 3.

That prompted accusations of bias from Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh, who said "there is no medical reason to stop" the Oct 15 debate from proceeding. Knocked off the campaign trail by his three-night hospitalization last week, the president is in the midst of a frenetic bid to catch Biden. On Friday, during an extended media blitz, Trump falsely claimed that COVID-19 now has a cure.

He also revealed that he'd been told he was near death at the worst of his bout with the virus, which has killed more than 213,000 Americans and severely dented his chances of winning a second term. Tomorrow, Trump will take another major step by holding a rally in a crucial battleground state. "Will be in Sanford, Florida on Monday for a very BIG RALLY!" Trump tweeted.

The events come despite continued questions over how sick Trump was and how complete his recovery is now, with White House officials refusing to answer basic queries including when the president first contracted the virus and whether he has tested negative since. After Trump spent months mocking Biden for staying at home during the pandemic, it is Biden who has barnstormed swing states this week.

He visited Arizona Thursday and campaigned Friday in Nevada. Trump won both states in 2016 but they are now narrowly tilting Democratic in polls. At a drive-in style event in Las Vegas, Biden slammed the president. "His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis, the destabilizing effect it's having on our government, is unconscionable," Biden said. As he boarded his campaign plane he offered a message for those attending Trump's public events: "Good luck. I wouldn't show up unless you had a mask and were distanced."

On Friday, Trump gave a marathon interview to rightwing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh in which he said the experimental Regeneron antibody cocktail that he took as part of therapeutic treatment was "a cure". It's "a total game changer" and "better than a vaccine", he said. In fact, there is no cure and still no approved vaccine for the coronavirus.

Later Friday he appeared in his first televised interview since he was diagnosed with the virus, telling Fox's Tucker Carlson show he is now "medication-free". In what the White House called an on-air "medical evaluation" the president told Fox contributor doctor Marc Siegel he has been tested again for COVID-19, saying he did not know the "numbers" but "I know I'm at either the bottom of the scale or free". It was not clear when the interview was filmed.

Trump has repeatedly asserted that he feels fine, and he has been backed up by statements from presidential physician Sean Conley. But in his Limbaugh interview, Trump suggested for the first time that he had been close to death, had it not been for his aggressive regimen of therapeutic drugs. "I'm talking to you today because of it. I could have been a bad victim," he said, adding that doctors told him: "You were going into a very bad phase."

Polls show Biden leads heavily in key demographics including women and the elderly, prompting analysts to talk increasingly of a possible landslide victory. Trump's biggest liability - overwhelming public dissatisfaction over his handling of the pandemic - has returned as the headline issue of the campaign thanks to his own infection. Adding to the pressure, Democrats who control the House of Representatives unveiled plans for a commission to investigate a president's fitness for the job - a move clearly meant to jab at Trump. - AFP