President Donald Trump gave his acceptance speech on the last of the four-night RNC event wherein expectations about addressing COVID-19 might have fallen short.
POTUS Donald Trump pushed through with closing the last day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) withing the White House grounds. He even bragged about it by pointing at the White House at one point in his speech, saying, “We’re here and they’re not.”
"The fact is, I'm here,” Trump said, turning and pointing to the White House behind him. “What's the name of that building?” The crowd laughed and cheered.
“We're here and they're not.”
More from the president's RNC speech: https://t.co/kWyLc21JLk pic.twitter.com/2As020oHUf
— POLITICO (@politico) August 28, 2020
During the whole duration of the event, where Trump’s vision to keep it mostly live was upheld, some parts of the United States suffered from sorts of tragedies. Hurricane Laura smashed its way in southwestern Louisiana and northward, the streets of Kenosha were engulfed in fire after the shooting of yet another black man by a police officer.
In addition, as pointed out by CNN, “[m]ore than 3,200 Americans” have died since the RNC started on Monday. Yet Trump triumphantly enumerated the great accomplishments his administration has done to fight this “invisible enemy.”
Downplayed the coronavirus pandemic
As The Guardian points out, Donald Trump has “repeatedly exaggerated and flat-out misrepresented his presidential record as he accepted the nomination.” Several news outlets have pointed out that Trump gave “misleading figures” while addressing the global pandemic.
Trump mentions:
“We are delivering lifesaving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner! “
To which he gave a dramatic pause, and the crowded audience stood up to applaud him. Trump has been critiqued for somehow pressuring the FDA to approve the EUA on convalescent plasma as treatment, which was signed recently.
Despite Trump’s positive regard to how he has handled the COVID-19 pandemic, he fails to mention that the U.S. has over 180,000 deaths—as of this writing—and has an average of 1,000 reported deaths a day.
ABC News quotes an excerpt of Joe Biden’s Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield statement, saying:
“Instead of a strategy to overcome the pandemic, or any concern for the unbearable suffering in our country right now as a result of his ongoing failures, what we heard was a delusional vision completely divorced from the crushing reality that ordinary Americans face.”
Critics grew worrisome on how crowded the event was
The last day of the RNC had people seated on the South Lawn of the White House grounds, most of the attendees were not wearing masks and were not seated securely apart.
The 4th night of the RNC was a slap in the face to every American who has quarantined, put on a mask & social distanced, & taken precautions to slow the spread of the deadly virus. That crowd, illegally gathering on our WH grounds w/o masks, told us they think we’re suckers.
— Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) August 28, 2020
The United States is still one of the leading countries in terms of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Per Worldometer, U.S. has a whopping 6,048,317 cases, as of this writing.
The problem with the RNC sending a message that COVID is over is not just that COVID isn't over (1,100 deaths were reported today) but also that there's very much still time for another resurgence by Nov. 3, and such a resurgence is more likely if people think it's over.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 28, 2020
According to Aljazeera, Donald Trump delivered a 70-minute speech in front of roughly 2,000 supporters. The event ended with a fireworks display at the sky view of the Washington monument.
Featured image courtesy of Frederic Legrand – COMEO/Shutterstock