U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to pull the Republican Convention out of North Carolina if its Governor did not guarantee that there would be no restrictions on crowd numbers. The convention is an event to nominate the GOP’s presidential candidate (expected to be Mr Trump).
As the U.S.’s 50 States are in various stages of reopening, the number of coronavirus deaths approached 100,000.
Tweeting to the Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, Mr. Trump said the GOP was spending millions constructing the arena for the convention and that Mr. Cooper was still in “shutdown mood”, unable to guarantee if a full crowd would be allowed to attend the August 24-27 convention.
“ They [the Republicans] must be immediately given an answer by the Governor as to whether or not the space will be allowed to be fully occupied. If not, we will be reluctantly forced to find, with all the jobs and economic development it brings, another Republican National Convention site. This is not something I want to do,” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday, which was the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S.
Science and data
Mr. Cooper tweeted out a statement in response, which said the State would review its plans for the convention and would rely on data while making decisions.
“State health officials are working with the RNC [Republican National Convention] and will review its plans as they make decisions about how to hold the convention in Charlotte. North Carolina is relying on data and science to protect our state’s public health and safety.”
North Carolina is in ‘Phase 2’ of opening – this allows an easing of some restrictions, such as restaurants opening with limitations on capacity and permission for gatherings of 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors. Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, recorded more then 3,200 cases and 73 deaths as per the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus database.
Nominating conventions are typically attended by about 50,000 people, including thousands of media representatives. The Democrats, who will nominate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., moved their convention, to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from mid-July to mid-August due to the pandemic. Earlier this month the party gave its convention organising committee the power to hold a virtual convention if needed.
Mr. Trump is reluctant to take the GOP down that route. “We’ll have a convention. I’m a traditionalist, but we’ll have to see, like everything else, but I think we’ll be in good shape by that time,” he told the Washington Examiner earlier in May.