The president insisting on mass reopening the country in the middle of a pandemic that’s killed nearly 100,000 Americans is unsurprisingly insisting on holding a packed Republican National Convention in August, despite public health experts’ repeated warning against mass gatherings. North Carolina, set to hold the RNC, is not too sure about that one!
CNN reports that Trump spent Memorial Day morning toilet-tweeting about North Carolina’s continued insistence on protecting its populace. Apparently, Governor Roy Cooper (a Democrat) has been “unable to guarantee” that the current Republican National Convention site in Charlotte will be able to operate at full capacity by the end of August, due to, once again, the deadly pandemic currently killing Americans nationwide. Though the virus may abate by the end of the summer, it won’t be gone until there’s a vaccine, if even then, and so it’s not hard to see why the governor might be wary of inviting thousands of people to descend upon his state.
“I love the Great State of North Carolina, so much so that I insisted on having the Republican National Convention in Charlotte at the end of August,” Trump tweeted. “Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood & unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed full attendance in the Arena.
He continued: “In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space.”
No surprise here that Trump is turning this particular temper tantrum into a partisan issue instead of a public health-related one, since Trump’s only interest in public health is as it relates to his approval numbers. Which, like our current state of public health, are not particularly good.