Tag: Trump willing to risk his supporters’ lives to hide his botched COVID-19 response

Exclusive: Internal documents show officials waved red flags before Trump’s Tulsa rally

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Oklahoma health officials raised red flags before President Trump’s indoor rally in June, warning there could be significant spikes of coronavirus cases and deaths from the event, according to internal state documents. 

Dozens of emails obtained by The Hill through a state freedom of information request reveal growing angst within the Oklahoma public health department in the days leading up to the June 20 rally.

Aaron Wendelboe, who at the time was the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s epidemiologist, sent one email titled: “How strongly do I speak out?” Continue reading.

Trump facing ‘internal backlash’ from his own campaign over indoor Vegas rally: report

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President Donald Trump’s defiant decision to hold an indoor rally in Las Vegas during the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just anger the president’s usual critics, but also some of his own campaign staff.

The New York Times reports that Trump’s indoor rally over the weekend sparked “a wave of internal backlash, including from a top Trump adviser who said the president was playing a game of Russian roulette in holding the indoor rally.”

The Trump adviser, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Times that Trump could hurt himself politically if there’s a surge in COVID-19 cases in Las Vegas over the next several weeks. Continue reading.

‘Shameful, dangerous and irresponsible’: Nevada governor blasts Trump for indoor rally against state rules

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Shortly before President Trump took the stage on Sunday night in Henderson, Nev., for his first indoor rally in months, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak blasted the president for flouting the state’s coronavirus restrictions by packing hundreds of supporters, many without masks, into a building.

The Democratic governor noted that Trump and his campaign were violating Nevada’s ban on gatherings of 50 people or more, tweeting that the president’s rally at Xtreme Manufacturing was “shameful, dangerous and irresponsible.”

“Tonight, President Donald Trump is taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada,” the governor said. “The President appears to have forgotten that this country is still in the middle of a global pandemic.” Continue reading.

Trump holds Nevada rally, Biden gets $100 million boost from Bloomberg in Florida

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President Trump is on a campaign swing out West this weekend, while former vice president Joe Biden attended a church service in Wilmington, Del., but has no public events. The president holds a Latinos for Trump roundtable in Las Vegas on Sunday morning, followed by two fundraisers and an evening rally in Henderson, Nev.

Biden, who is leading Trump in the money race, got even more good news in the form of a pledge by former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg to spend at least $100 million in Florida to help elect the Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump’s Nevada visit comes as he continues to defend his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, after the release of an interview with Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward in which Trump acknowledged he played down the severity of the virus. Continue reading.