Tag: Trump super spreader event

Young conservatives mingled maskless at Mar-a-Lago and partied with a money cannon

Washington Post logo

Conservative student group Turning Point USA held two large events in Florida this weekend, including one at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club, allegedly violating local coronavirus restrictions and disregarding authorities’ pleas to avoid such massive gatherings.

Turning Point on Friday night held its annual winter gala at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. The party was attended by hundreds of students, organizers and GOP notables such as South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Mike Lindell, otherwise known as the “MyPillow Guy.”

Then on Saturday, thousands of students gathered indoors at the organization’s “Student Action Summit,” where they heard from conservative GOP speakers, including Donald Trump Jr., and cheered loudly as women shot money into the crowd with a cannon. Continue reading.

Invincibility punctured by infection: How the coronavirus spread in Trump’s White House

Washington Post logo

The ceremony in the White House Rose Garden last Saturday was a triumphal flashback to the Before Times — before public health guidelines restricted mass gatherings, before people were urged to wear masks and socially distance.

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump welcomed more than 150 guests as the president formally introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett, his nominee for the Supreme Court. A handful of Republican senators were there, including Mike Lee of Utah, who hugged and mingled with guests. So was Kellyanne Conway, the recently departed senior counselor to the president, as well as the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame, who left his Indiana campus where a coronavirus outbreak had recently occurred to celebrate an alumna’s nomination.

Spirits were high. Finally, Trump was steering the national discussion away from the coronavirus pandemic — which had already killed more than 200,000 people in the United States and was still raging — to more favorable terrain, a possible conservative realignment of the Supreme Court. Continue reading.