Trump Has Words for Giuliani on the Virus

President Trump has told his longtime friend and sometimes lawyer Rudy Giuliani that he’s "going to beat" the coronavirus, the AP reports. The New York Post says Trump called Giuliani on Saturday to assure him he’s doing fine following a sobering assessment from the White House chief of staff. Trump reportedly told Giuliani on the call: "I feel I could get out of here right now. But they're telling me there can always be a backstep with this disease. But I feel I could go out and do a rally." Trump also reportedly explained that he continued to engage in high-risk activity despite the pandemic because he's the "president of the United States. I can't lock myself in a room. … I had to confront (the virus) so the American people stopped being afraid of it so we could deal with it responsibly."

He also said he hopes that by beating the virus he "will be able to show people we can deal with this disease responsibly, but we shouldn't be afraid of it." (The official coronavirus death toll is over one million people worldwide.) Trump is being treated around the clock by a team of doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Meanwhile, Joe Biden says he urged some governors who wanted to endorse his presidential campaign to refrain from doing so because the Trump administration might retaliate by withholding medical supplies critical to COVID-19 relief. "I told some governors ... don't endorse me because you’ll pay a penalty," he said at a virtual town from Wilmington, Delaware. "You won’t get what you need from the federal government in terms of COVID prep."

(More President Trump stories.)