US Presidential elections 2020 live: Trump leaves hospital, flies back to White House

The coronavirus’s rampage through America threw a spotlight on its failings — on the galling inequality, the fatal partisanship, the susceptibility to fiction and the way in which rugged individualism had curdled into plain old selfishness.

While Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is unlikely to prioritize a financial industry crackdown if he wins on Nov. 3, he is expected to take a much tougher line than Trump and his former boss President Barack Obama. Banks and investors were preparing for a Biden victory over the weekend after Trump tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, in a blow for his campaign.

The renewed effort in the US Congress to reach a fresh deal to pump coronavirus relief funds into the pandemic-hit economy has been further complicated by the news that President Donald Trump and three Senate Republicans have tested positive. Word about the three senators' results prompted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to announce over the weekend that the chamber would be out until Oct 19.

Trump, 74, was flown to hospital for treatment for the coronavirus on Friday, but his doctors say he has responded well and could return to the White House on Monday. That helped US S&P 500 e-mini futures rise 0.62%, while Nasdaq futures gained 0.89%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.08%. Euro Stoxx 50 futures were up 0.82%, German DAX futures rose 0.72%, and FTSE futures gained by 0.91%.

President Donald Trump's long-hidden tax returns leaked out. His first debate performance ignited a firestorm over white supremacy. He was hospitalized for COVID-19 after months of playing down the threat of a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans. And that was just this past week. Trump's reelection team, battered on all sides, now enters the final month of the campaign grappling with deficits in the polls, a shortage of cash and a candidate who is at least temporarily sidelined. The crises, many of Trump's own making, have come so quickly that they are hard to keep straight.

Conley said Trump's blood oxygen levels had dropped in prior days and that he had run a high fever on Friday morning. Asked what tests had revealed about the condition of Trump's lungs, Conley replied: "There's some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern."

Trump, 74, wore a mask as he waved from the back seat of a black SUV that crawled in a caravan of vehicles in front of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, while supporters waving Trump 2020 flags chanted: "USA! USA!". It was Trump's first appearance in public since he was evacuated to the hospital on Friday.