Vice President Mike Pence on Friday defended the decision by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign to orchestrate large-scale, indoor rallies in defiance of federal coronavirus guidance as spikes in Covid-19 cases continue to emerge across the country.
Speaking at the first news briefing of the White House coronavirus task force in nearly two months, Pence was pressed repeatedly by reporters on the Trump campaign’s apparent contradiction of the recommendations issued by administration officials — which have urged Americans to obey local public health directives and practice personal mitigation measures such as social distancing and mask-wearing to slow the spread of the disease.
The vice president deflected the questions by invoking the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and peaceable assembly, as well as the conservative tenet of individual liberty. He also cited the importance of enabling civic engagement ahead of November’s general election.
“We have an election coming up this fall,” Pence said. “President Trump and I believe that taking proper steps, as we’ve created screening at recent events, and giving people the very best counsel that we have, we still want to give people the freedom to participate in the political process, and we respect that.”
Trump was roundly rebuked by national Democrats and public health experts for rallying inside an arena in Tulsa, Okla., last weekend and addressing a church packed with students in Phoenix on Tuesday.
Those events came as the number of new Covid-19 cases surged in the nation’s three most populous states — California, Florida and Texas — and the U.S. as a whole on Thursday registered another single-day record of more than 39,000 new infections.
But Pence on Friday insisted that Trump rally-goers “know and understand what’s happening in the community in which they live,” and argued that “even in a health crisis, the American people don’t forfeit” rights enshrined in the Constitution.
“I think it’s really important that we recognize how important freedom and personal responsibility are to this entire equation,” he said, “but allowing younger Americans to understand — particularly in the counties that are most impacted — the unique challenges that we are facing.”
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June 27, 2020 at 02:24AM
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Pence leans on ‘constitutional rights’ to defend Trump campaign rallies amid pandemic - POLITICO
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