- Trump’s reelection campaign has postponed upcoming events for Vice President Mike Pence in Arizona and Florida out of “a lot of caution,” as those states, among others, see their peak of COVID-19 cases.
- On Friday, the vice president falsely claimed that the United States had paved the curve despite conflicting evidence from the White House Task Force on Coronavirus.
- On Friday, the US reported more than 40,000 new cases of COVID-19, the highest single-day increase reported since the pandemic began.
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The campaign for the reelection of President Donald Trump on Saturday postponed upcoming events in both Arizona and Florida, as both states report record increases in COVID-19 cases.
The campaign said it was postponing Vice President Mike Pence’s scheduled shutdowns in the states “as a precaution,” according to NBC News journalist Josh Lederman. Business Insider confirmed that Pence events have been postponed.
Pence is still expected to visit Arizona and Florida to meet with state leaders, but the meetings will be considered White House events and not campaign stops, according to Jacob Gardenswartz of NBC News.
The move comes a day after a press conference in which the vice president falsely claimed that the US had flattened the curve when the nation reported its largest single-day increase in new cases of all time.
“While we are here today, all 50 states and territories in this country are being opened in a safe and responsible manner,” Pence said Friday after a meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force. “The truth is, we slowed the spread. We flattened the curve.”
As Business Insider previously reported, 14 charts from the White House’s own workforce showed that the spread of COVID-19 was increasing rapidly, particularly among densely populated areas in the southern states. Some leaders, including the president, have attributed the increases to increased testing capacity, although experts have said that is not accurate as states such as Texas and Florida have reported a higher proportion of positive results among test results. , noted Aylin Woodward of Business Insider.
Florida and 10 other states broke their records for the average number of cases reported daily during the past week, according to The Washington Post. At least 40,173 new cases of COVID-19 were reported Friday, according to CNN through data analyzed by Johns Hopkins University. Other estimates were higher. NBC News found that more than 45,000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported across the country on Friday.
On Saturday, Arizona reported 3,591 new cases, tying its historical record set Tuesday, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. On Friday, Florida broke its historical record with nearly 9,000 new reported cases of COVID-19. As Business Insider previously reported, that was the highest single-day increase reported by any US state since April 15.
While the campaign has postponed the events of Pence, on June 20 the president held a face-to-face rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, against the advice of health experts. The event had at least 6,200 attendees, although the Trump campaign claimed twice as many attendees. It was Trump’s first campaign event since the COVID-19 pandemic took over the United States and forced him to pause his famous Make American Great Again protests.
