President Trump berated his own cabinet officers on Thursday for not prosecuting or implicating his political enemies, lashing out even as he announced that he hoped to return to the campaign trail on Saturday just nine days after he tested positive for the coronavirus.

In his first extended public comments since learning he had the virus last week, Trump went on the offensive not only against his challenger, former Vice-President Joseph R. Biden Jr, but the Democratic running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, whom he called “a monster” and a “communist”. He baulked at participating in his debate next Thursday with Biden if held remotely as the organisers decided to do out of health concerns.

But Trump secured a statement from the White House physician clearing him to return to public activities on Saturday and then promptly said he would try to hold a campaign rally in Florida that day, two days earlier than the doctor had originally said was needed to determine whether he was truly out of danger.

The President again dismissed the virus, saying, “when you catch it, you get better”, ignoring the more than 212,000 people in the US who did not get better and died from it.

In his statement on Thursday night, the physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, reported that Trump “has responded extremely well to treatment” and that by Saturday, “I fully expect the President’s return to public engagement.” Dr Conley, who has previously acknowledged providing the public with a rosy view of the President’s condition to satisfy his patient, contradicted his own timeline offered upon Trump’s release from the hospital, when he said doctors wanted to “get through to Monday”.

The President has not been seen in person since returning to the White House this Monday, but he sought to reassert himself on the public stage with a pair of telephone interviews with Fox News and Fox Business as well as a video and a series of Twitter messages.

Even for him, they were scattershot performances, ones that advisers said reflected increasing frustration over his political fortunes only 26 days before an election with surveys that show him trailing Biden by double digits.

The President castigated his own team, declaring that attorney-general William P. Barr would go down in history “as a very sad, sad situation” if he did not indict Democrats like Biden and former President Barack Obama.

He complained that secretary of state Mike Pompeo had not released Hillary Clinton’s emails, saying, “I’m not happy about him for that reason.” And he targeted Christopher A. Wray, the FBI director. “He’s been disappointing,” Trump said.

“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we’ll just have to go, because I won’t forget it,” Trump said, referring to the probe into his 2016 campaign ties with Russia.

“But these people should be indicted. This was the greatest political crime in the history of our country, and that includes Obama and it includes Biden.”

Trump has often argued that his antagonists should be prosecuted, but in this case, he went further by indicating that he had directly pressured Barr to indict without waiting for more evidence. “He’s got all the information he needs,” the President said.

New York Times News Service