Coronavirus live updates: Trump cheers judge’s ruling against Pennsylvania lockdown

President Trump’s first indoor rally in months was staged as a rebuke to Democrats he accuses of using coronavirus restrictions against him, but the campaign event in Nevada also prompted sharp denunciations from critics on Monday as a symbol of the president’s failure to effectively confront the deadly covid-19 crisis.

The Sunday night gathering came as the pandemic has caused at least 190,000 deaths in the United States, with the number expected to pass 200,000 sometime before Trump holds his next official campaign events on Friday. The Nov. 3 election had already become a referendum on the president’s often dismissive approach to the pandemic before revelations last week that he had told Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward he knew the severity of the virus but preferred to play it down in public.

“We are already making the turn. We’re making that round, beautiful, last turn” to a post-pandemic economic recovery, Trump said during the rally in Henderson, Nev., although the nation has recovered only about half of the jobs lost since spring and 13.6 million workers remain unemployed.