President Trump said Friday that he developed weakness, a sore throat and lung congestion from his bout with COVID-19, but he’s feeling strong enough now that he stopped taking medications for it.
Mr. Trump also told Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel that he was re-tested for the virus earlier on Friday, but didn’t know the results yet.
“I know that I’m at the bottom of the scale, or [virus] free,” the president said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” He said he would be re-tested on Saturday.
“I feel really good, I feel really, really strong,” the president said.
Dr. Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University, interviewed Mr. Trump remotely from New York in the president’s first on-camera interview since he tested positive on Oct. 8. The president said his initial symptoms were that he “didn’t feel strong.”
“I didn’t feel very vital,” he said. “I didn’t feel like the president of the U.S. should feel.”
Mr. Trump said he “didn’t really have a problem with breathing.” He didn’t mention that doctors gave him supplemental oxygen at the White House on Oct. 9, before he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The president did say that he developed a sore throat, and that a CT scan of his lungs showed congestion.
“You were tired. You didn’t have that same energy level,” the president said. “Initially I think they had some congestion in there. With each day, it got better ….the CT scans were amazing, the equipment was incredible.”
The president’s team of doctors treated him with an antibody cocktail made by Regeneron. Mr. Trump called the medicine, which does not have emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration, “miraculous.”
“Within a period of 24 hours, I felt very different,” Mr. Trump said. “I just felt very good. I wanted to leave [the hospital] after the first day. I’d like to send it to everybody, and we’re going to send it free of charge.”
He said a steroid that he was taking “keeps the swelling down of the lungs. I think I tolerated it very well.”
Asked what medications he’s taking now, the president replied, “Right now I’m medication free. We’re pretty much finished.”
Mr. Trump said one of his doctors told him that his outcome could have been much worse.
“The big secret for me is that I got there very early. I think it would have gotten a lot worse,” he said.
The president scoffed at a proposal by the Commission on Presidential Debates to hold a virtual debate with Democrat Joseph R. Biden on Oct. 15, asking,
“Who wants to do a debate on a computer? I don’t.”
Mr. Trump is set to host a gathering on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday to give an address on law and order. He will hold his official return to the campaign trail with a rally on Monday in Florida.
