WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th October, 2020) US President Donald Trump during a town hall meeting in Miami, Florida, went head to head with NBC news moderator Savannah Guthrie on several personal issues such as the president's experience infected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), his tax returns, in addition to several policy issues.
The Thursday night nationally televised panel, consisting of answering voter questions, ran at the same time as Democratic rival Joe Biden held a similar meeting. A face-to-face debate had been canceled after Trump tested positive for the virus and refused to engage in a virtual setting.
The president was pushed on why his battle with the novel coronavirus has not influenced him to support greater mitigation efforts to slow the spread of the disease.
Trump said the state-wide lockdown imposed by several US governors to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is unconstitutional.
"The fact is we're winning all these cases because it's unconstitutional what they're doing and I think they're doing it for political reasons," Trump said.
Trump said his opinion on wearing masks has not changed after contracting COVID-19 earlier this month, mostly because he has been okay with whether individuals wear masks or not.
"As president I can't be locked in a room someplace for the next year and just stay and do nothing," Trump said, adding that a majority of people who wear masks still contract the novel coronavirus.
Regarding his personal battle with COVID-19, Trump said his medical staff never told him that he had pneumonia but that his lungs were a little bit infected.
Regarding racial injustice, Trump said he has done more for the Black community than his rivals.
The US president blamed Democrats in Congress for blocking a Republican bill to implement meaningful police reform in order to address policy brutality issues among the African-American community.
Trump also reiterated that he has denounced white supremacy many times and emphasized that the left-wing Antifa group is causing much destruction in US cities.
Trump was asked if he was familiar with the QAnon conspiracy theory and their belief that Democrats are part of a satanic pedophile ring that he will defeat.
"I know nothing about QAnon," Trump said when asked to disavow the group. "What I do hear about it is they are very strongly against pedophilia and I agree with that, I do agree with that and I agree with it very strongly."
In addition, Trump was asked to respond to why this week he retweeted a tweet that pushed a conspiracy theory that his Democratic rival Joe Biden orchestrated to have Navy SEAL Team 6 members killed to cover up the fake death of Osama Bin Laden, the former leader of al-Qaeda (a terrorist group banned in Russia).
Trump said he does a lot of retweets and that the opinion was of someone else.
The president hit back when asked about reports that he is in deep debt of over $420 million. He said the reports were wrong, besides the amount was a tiny percentage of his net worth.
He cleared up any conspiracies that he may owe money to Russia, but he did mention that he "probably" may owe some money to a foreign entity.
The New York Times recently reported that Trump paid $750 yearly in taxes for 2016 and 2017 and paid no income taxes at all in ten of the previous 15 years largely because of reported business losses.
Trump also said the New York Times acquiring his taxes is illegal and individuals responsible for it should go to jail.
The US president refused to give an opinion on the Roe v. Wade decision, which ruled in 1973 that a state law in Texas could not ban abortions.
Trump said he did not want to influence any potential decision in the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling, but he did mention it is something each state should decide.
The final debate between the Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden will be October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee.
