President Donald Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he wishes he could hold rallies for his reelection campaign, but he can’t because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’d love to do the rallies. We can’t because of the COVID," Trump said. "You know, you can’t have people sitting next to each other.”
The president further explained his stance on rallies, saying that “You can’t have empty seats. You know, if I had five empty seats — for instance, they said, 'Would I do a rally, sir?' The reason I won’t do them [is] because, you can have one seat and then seven around that seat, sir, have to be empty," Trump told Fox News Radio.
"Oh, that'll look great. You know, you have one person and everything's empty around them. You can’t do that."
In June, Trump tried to return to holding campaign rallies, even though health experts warned against it. At an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, only 6,200 showed up in an arena that has the capacity to hold 19,200, according to the city's fire department, although the president’s campaign insisted 12,000 people were there, Axios reported.
That rally, along with related protests "more than likely" contributed to the region’s surge in coronavirus cases, the Tulsa City-County Health Department said last month.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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