Citing health concerns about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump revealed Thursday that he had canceled the portion of the Republican National Convention scheduled for next month in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaking from the White House press room, Trump said Republican delegates would still meet in person in Charlotte, and that he would deliver an acceptance speech “in a different way.”
Trump announced on June 11 that he would accept the nomination at a live event in Jacksonville, canceling his in-person appearance in Charlotte after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper refused to commit to lifting his state’s coronavirus restrictions.
The president was scheduled to deliver his speech in Jacksonville on the 60th anniversary of a brutal Ku Klux Klan attack in the city known as “Ax Handle Saturday.”
Republican officials were careful not to call the Jacksonville speech a “convention,” but rather an event “to celebrate the appointment of President Donald J. Trump.” The official convention had always been scheduled for Charlotte.
On Thursday, Trump claimed he told campaign officials that he had canceled the celebration, saying “the timing for this event is not the right one, it just isn’t right. The outbreak in Florida is just not the right time.”
“I have to protect the American people,” added the president.
Despite the slump in polls and approval ratings, Trump has tried in recent days to cast a somber tone on the threat of the coronavirus. He declared Tuesday that the pandemic “would get worse before it got better,” endorsing the masks on camera for the first time since his administration recommended them in April.
However, the president seems unable to sell himself even at the pivot. In an interview with Chris Wallace, which aired on Fox News Sunday, Trump insisted on a bogus false argument about the evidence and lied about the country’s global rank on the metric. It has also sidelined Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, whose advice he has not sought since early June, from media appearances.
