[ad_1]
By The Washington Post 
8h ago
Tim Elfrink and Brittany Shammas
Washington – By the time President Donald Trump finished speaking with thousands of supporters at Omaha’s Eppley Airfield Tuesday night and flew out on Air Force One, the temperature had plummeted to near zero.
But as long lines of MAGA-clad attendees queued for buses to take them to distant parking lots, it quickly became clear that something was wrong.
The buses, the large crowd soon learned, were not allowed on the congested roads at the airport. For hours attendees, including many elderly Trump supporters, stood in the cold as police scrambled to help those most at risk warm up.
Thirty people required medical attention during the course of the rally, Omaha police spokesman Michael Pecha told The Washington Post on Wednesday. Seven were transferred to local hospitals “with a variety of medical conditions.” It was not immediately clear how many of them were related to the off-site wait.
The Trump campaign said it had provided enough buses, but traffic on the two-lane highway outside the airport accelerated in one direction after the rally, Aaron Sanderford, a political reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, tweeted. Samantha Zager, undersecretary of national press for the campaign, blamed the road closures in a statement Wednesday, saying the campaign works to provide “the best guest experience” and “we care about their safety.”
“President Trump loves his supporters and was excited to visit Omaha last night,” he said. “Despite the cold, tens of thousands of people turned out for their rally. Due to the large crowd size, we deployed 40 shuttle buses instead of the usual 15, but local road closures and the resulting congestion caused delays.”
Confusion and freezing weather added to the health risks that accompany every Trump rally during the novel coronavirus pandemic. In Omaha, buses took about 25,000 people to the airport for the event, Pecha said. Although the campaign checked temperatures and provided masks, many of those who packed the stands outside the airport did not wear them, the World-Herald reported.
In the run-up to the demonstration, police warned that parking lots were full. With buses taking half an hour to transport people more than three miles away to the rally site, hundreds of attendees were late to get in, reported Iowa Starting Line, a liberal news site.
After Trump’s speech, where he promised “we are taking the final turn” on covid-19 in a state where positivity rates exceed 20%, according to the World-Herald, Trump flew on Air Force One at around 9 p.m. The assistants began to line up. for the buses to return to their cars.
At almost 10:30 pm, however, they were still waiting.
“President Trump took off on Air Force One 1 hour and 20 minutes ago, but thousands of his supporters remain stranded on a dark road outside the rally,” CNN’s Jeff Zeleny tweeted.
Zeleny wrote that he saw an Omaha police officer shake his head at the “chaotic group” and say, “We need at least 30 more buses.”
Soon, officers were radioing about numerous elderly attendants struggling with the cold, according to Omaha Scanner. Police began moving some people into their cars to get them out of the elements.
“As we walked, I saw at least two @OmahaPolice officers helping people who were cold, an elderly woman and a child,” Sanderford tweeted.
Crowds did not fully clear the rally site until after 12:30 a.m., more than three and a half hours after Trump’s departure, Sanderford reported.
Some local Democrats blamed the president for the scene.
“Supporters for the president were brought in, but buses were unable to return to transport people. It’s freezing tonight and snowing in Omaha,” Nebraska Democratic State Senator Megan Hunt tweeted. “He doesn’t really care about you.”
During an appearance Wednesday in Delaware, former Vice President Joe Biden also took aim at Trump for the long wait in the cold, calling it “an image that captured President Trump’s entire focus” on the coronavirus pandemic.
“He gets his photoshoot and goes out,” he said. “Let everyone else suffer the consequences of his failure to make a responsible plan. It seems he doesn’t care much. And the longer he’s in charge, the more reckless he becomes.”
[ad_2]
