>> During a briefing today, Donald Trump made
clear that he intends to cancel the Jacksonville,
Florida portion of the Republican National
Convention. He explains in a little more detail
in the next video, let's take a look.
>> And people elected me to help and to protect,
so I told my team it's time to cancel the
Jacksonville, Florida component of the GOP
convention.
We'll be starting in North Carolina for the
Monday as always been planned. We were never
taking that off. That's remaining as it is.
The delegates are going to get together. That's
where they do their nomination. So the delegates
are going to North Carolina, and there'll
be doing the nomination.
And we're going to do some other things with
telerallies and online the week that we're
discussing, which will be really good. I think
we're gonna do it well, and I'll still do
a convention speech in a different form. But
we won't do a big, crowded convention, per
se, it's just not the right time for that.
I care deeply about the people of Florida
and everywhere else, frankly, in this country,
and even in the world, who would be coming
into the state, and I don't wanna do anything
to upset it. There'll be doing very well,
very shortly. We're gonna put some maps up
of the country behind me.
And you'll see that the area that we're talking
about is a hotspot.
>> So one thing that will happen in North
Carolina is that delegates will still gather
in North Carolina and formally nominate Donald
Trump for re-election. Before he made that
statement, he made sure to preface it by arguing
that there is great demand to still hold this
in person convention in Jacksonville, Florida.
But that he needs to do the right thing and
do what needs to be done in order to prevent
the spread of coronavirus, especially in a
hot spot like Jacksonville, Florida. But the
reality is, Cenk, that there was actually
polling showing that people living in Jacksonville,
Florida were not in favor of holding this
convention.
They either disagreed with it or strongly
disagreed with it. One of the surveys was
done by the University of North Florida. And
it found that 58% of Jacksonville residents
did not agree with holding the convention.
And the Duval County Sheriff, his name's Mike
Williams, he also recently spoke out and said
he had significant concerns about holding
the convention in Jacksonville, Florida, in
the middle of this pandemic.
So there actually wasn't great demand, but,
of course, he needs to tell himself and the
rest of the country all these little lies
to make it seem like he's doing the heroic
thing by canceling the Jacksonville, Florida
portion of the convention.
>> So is Herman Cain still alive, cuz he got
Coronavirus Trump's Tulsa rally?
As di apparently a number of people, and COVID
cases does spike after that rally in Oklahoma.
So should the good people of Jacksonville
be concerned about a super spreader event?
Of course. So Florida now has record number
of cases. It's one of the worst hit states.
So they'd be nuts not to be concerned.
And you shouldn't underestimate these large
gatherings. They are apparently the, Single
bit best indicator of spreading the disease.
And so I guess it's not overall that surprising.
I think that when I read the study on it,
I was surprised by the magnitude of the impact
that these big crowd gatherings had.
Because it spreads like wildfire and then
they all go home. They don't have enough time
to do contact tracing, cuz there's now a backlog
on tests. You get the results seven to ten
days later. By that time, everybody's already
spread it everywhere. So, of course, they
should do this.
But I will say, to be fair, I just looked
it up to refresh my recollection, it appears
that the Democrats have not yet canceled their
version of this. So they told the state delegates
to stay home. So that's part of the precautions
the Democrats are taking. They limited the
number of media that is allowed.
Obviously, of course, they immediately said
progressive media is banned. They didn't approve
of our credentials, of course. We're one of
the largest news that works in the country.
But God forbid that they should work with
us. Anyway, but back to the point, and more
importantly, as far as I can tell, based on
the latest reporting, Joe Biden is still planning
to give a speech in Milwaukee.
So Trump does jump ahead of him on that. So
nicely done on that, and the Democrats are
still not sure. So if you're gonna be mad
at Trump for taking this long to cancel it
and say, of course that they should cancel
it in Jacksonville, you should say the same
of Democrats.
>> Right, I mean, look, I am not mad at Trump
simply because he took this long to cancel
the convention. I mean, it's everything else
that's led to the United States handling this
coronavirus pandemic so poorly. Especially
considering how many resources we have as
a country and how we should be leading when
it comes to the response to this pandemic.
Donald Trump isn't doing this because he cares
about the well-being of individuals. That's
the reason why he decided to hold the Tulsa
rally and other events following that Tulsa
rally. And then later when he realized that
people weren't willing to show up and risk
their lives, their health to be there, all
of a sudden he switched over to these press
briefings again.
Where he's pretending like he's doing it to
talk about the severity of Coronavirus. But
I really think that he wanted to save himself
from the embarrassment of holding this controversial
rally in Jacksonville, Florida and then seeing
that the crowd is gonna be empty and embarrassing
for him. I think that's really what drove
his decision here.
I don't think it has anything to do with public
health or safety.
>> Yeah, well, it's a combination of things.
They are making a turn towards, yeah, maybe
less people dying might be a good idea. Maybe
we wear masks four months after the virus
started raging throughout the country.
Three months after we became the leading country
in coronavirus cases and deaths. So this is
a lot of too little too late. I guess I'm
glad they're doing it. And I agree with you,
probably the number one factor was he is haunted
by Tulsa and k-pop bands. And so he's probably
thinking, I can't handle my ego, my insecurity
cannot handle another two-thirds empty stadium.
