President Trump is not expected to hold campaign rallies until at least Monday, an official familiar with the plans said Friday, despite the president floating the possibility of venturing out this weekend.
Multiple news outlets, including Fox News, Bloomberg and Reuters, reported that Trump was not planning to hit the campaign trail over the weekend. The president is still just eight days removed from his first positive test for COVID-19.
Trump himself had said he was considering getting out of the White House as early as Saturday to gather with supporters.
“I think I’m going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we have enough time to put it together,” Trump told Sean Hannity in a Fox News interview Thursday night.
The president said he was eyeing holding a campaign event on Saturday in Florida and another in Pennsylvania on Sunday. Both are critical swing states that Trump won in 2016, and polls show him trailing narrowly in Florida and more substantially in Pennsylvania.
While those trips may be off the table, Trump is now expected to host supporters at the White House for an outdoor event on Saturday, ABC News reported. The event will be focused on law and order, and Trump is likely to speak from the balcony overlooking the South Lawn.
White House physician Sean Conley said in a memo released Thursday that the president could return to public interactions on Saturday.
Trump conceded to Hannity that he had not yet been tested for the virus since his initial diagnosis, and White House officials have repeatedly refused to say when he last tested negative.
Public health officials advise that an individual who had the virus obtain two negative tests before venturing out in public again, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines suggest individuals should remain isolated for 10 days after the onset of symptoms.
Trump has been symptomatic since at least last Friday, and his doctors initially said he would need to make it until Monday before they would breathe a sigh of relief.
But the president and his aides have attempted to project a sense of normalcy despite his brush with the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. Trump has worked out of the Oval Office each of the last two days, and he spent two hours on the phone with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Friday afternoon.