Trump rally: Maskless Florida governor high-fives supporters at event attended by thousands

Rally was president’s first since testing positive for coronavirus

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been spotted high-fiving several Trump supporters at a campaign rally in Sanford that was attended by thousands of people, many of whom did not wear masks or practise social distancing.

Video from the event on Monday evening shows the maskless GOP lawmaker, 42, slap hands with at least five Trump fans before appearing to rub his nose as he made his way through the tightly packed together crowd at the Orlando Sanford International Airport.

Team Trump had earlier on Monday said the rally would be subject to "strong precautions". All attendees at the event would be temperature checked and provided with a face mask that they're "instructed to wear", said Courtney Parella, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign.

Mr DeSantis - one of the president's most vocal cheerleaders - has repeatedly downplayed the risks associated with a virus that has claimed some 215,000 US lives, with around 7 per cent of those fatalities coming in his own state of Florida.

The governor appeared at Monday night's rally to serve as the warm-up act for Mr Trump, 74, whose chances of winning reelection in November depend heavily on hanging onto the Sunshine State - a key battleground he narrowly won in 2016, when up against Democrat Hilary Clinton.

Speaking an hour before Mr Trump was due to take the stage, Mr DeSantis touted the president as the "law and order" candidate as he claimed that Democrats are soft on crime - an attack line used by team Trump frequently throughout the campaign.

He also claimed that if elected, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, 77, would shut down schools and businesses in a bid to combat the surging coronavirus pandemic. "We’re not going to let them shut our schools. We’re not going to let them close our businesses. We are not going to let them shut down this country,” Mr DeSantis added.

Following Mr DeSantis's speech, Mr Trump took to the stage in his first appearance on the campaign trail since testing positive for coronavirus earlier this month, launching into a defiant defence of his handling of the pandemic.

Despite being hospitalised, Mr Trump's message on Covid-19 was unaltered: a dubious assessment that the pandemic was just about a thing of the past. Hundreds of people in the US continue to die of the virus every day.

"Under my leadership, we're delivering a safe vaccine and a rapid recovery like no one can even believe," Mr Trump insisted. "If you look at our upward path, no country in the world has recovered the way we have recovered."

Boisterous and bellicose, he thanked the audience for their well-wishes and declared he was no longer contagious as he embarked on a frenetic final stretch of the campaign.

The president insisted that, after being given experimental medication and other VIP treatment, he felt great and was glad he no longer needs to be concerned about infection because he's now "immune."

"I feel so powerful," said Mr Trump, displaying no obvious signs of lingering infection. "I'll walk into that audience. I'll walk in there, I'll kiss everyone in that audience. I'll kiss the guys and the beautiful women ... everybody. I'll just give ya a big fat kiss."

With three weeks to go before the election, Mr Trump is pushing to correct a stubborn deficit in national and battleground state polling as he continues to spread misinformation about a virus that he has spent months downplaying.

Polls show a much closer race in the key battleground of Florida, where the president is set to visit again on Friday with a rally in Ocala.

Additional reporting by Associated Press