Republicans said Tuesday night that they were moving President Trump’s convention speech out of Charlotte, N.C., and to another city, after coming to a stalemate with Democratic officials in the state about safety and crowd size restrictions because of the coronavirus.
Michael Ahrens, communications director of the Republican National Committee, said that “the celebration of the president’s acceptance of the Republican nomination will be held in another city.” But Republican officials also said they could still hold other convention business in Charlotte, so as not to break a formal contract they signed with the city more than two years ago.
In an implicit condemnation of the social distancing regulations that North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, has insisted upon, Mr. Ahrens added that “should the governor allow more than 10 people in a room, we still hope to conduct the official business of the convention in Charlotte.”
Mr. Trump tweeted on Tuesday night that Republicans were now “forced to seek” an alternative to Charlotte for the convention in August.
Party officials are planning a visit to Nashville later in the week to assess its suitability for the convention. Other cities under consideration, according to a Republican official familiar with the plans, are Las Vegas, Orlando and Jacksonville, as well as sites in Georgia.
The escalating tension over the convention reflects the extent to which the quadrennial event has been caught up in the partisan battle between Democrats and Republicans about when to fully reopen the country, and how much caution to exercise as the country struggles to regain normalcy amid the pandemic. While Democratic officials have taken a more measured approach to holding their own convention, citing the uncertainty caused by the virus, Republicans have largely lined up behind Mr. Trump’s desire for a boisterous event that can serve as a celebration of his bid for a second term.
On Twitter, Mr. Trump blamed Mr. Cooper for the change of plans. The governor has been insisting on safety and crowd size restrictions inside the Spectrum Center to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, while Mr. Trump and Republican officials have been pushing for a large gathering with the look and feel of a pre-coronavirus political rally.
“Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode,” Mr. Trump tweeted, “and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised.” He said that because of Mr. Cooper, “we are now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.”
Earlier in the day, Mr. Cooper had implicitly criticized Mr. Trump for staging a photo-op in front of St. John’s Church in Washington, and for having the authorities forcefully disrupt peaceful protests outside the White House to clear the path for his walk there.
“Right now, we need leaders of strength who can hear everybody,” the governor said.
Mr. Trump and top Republican officials had already been discussing alternative sites to Charlotte after reaching a stalemate with officials there about safety precautions that attendees would have to take, including a requirement to wear face masks and to practice social distancing.
With virus cases growing in North Carolina, Mr. Cooper wrote a letter to Republican officials on Tuesday saying that “the people of North Carolina do not know what the status of Covid-19 will be in August, so planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing and face coverings is a necessity.”
Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the R.N.C., earlier in the day escalated the feud with state officials, putting the state on notice that there was a strong possibility of moving the event.
“We have an obligation to our delegates and nominee to begin visiting the multiple cities and states who have reached out in recent days about hosting an historic event to show that America is open for business,” Ms. McDaniel wrote in a letter to Mr. Cooper.
The latest stalemate came after Ms. McDaniel and Marcia Lee Kelly, the president of the convention committee, had given Mr. Cooper a June 3 deadline to approve safety measures to prevent the spread of the virus during the event.
Ms. McDaniel and Ms. Kelly had at one point acknowledged that a safe convention would need to be scaled back to protect the health of its attendees. But in his letter Tuesday, Mr. Cooper indicated that the two parties involved were no longer in agreement about working toward a scaled-back event, and referred to a Friday night phone call with Ms. McDaniel and Mr. Trump, in which they wanted a guarantee of a “full arena” inside the Spectrum Center for the president’s official nomination.
Instead, Mr. Cooper made it clear that despite a two-year-old contract with the Republican Party to hold the convention, which was originally set to bring 19,000 delegates and alternates, as well as other visitors, to the biggest city in the state, he was not going to guarantee he could deliver the convention on the terms they demanded. He underscored that face coverings and social distancing requirements would be necessary for any large gathering he signed off on.
“Neither public health officials nor I will risk the health and safety of North Carolinians by providing the guarantee you seek,” Mr. Cooper wrote on Tuesday.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
