President Donald J. Trump has announced that the Republican National Convention will not take place in Jacksonville, Florida this August.
“I told my team it’s time to cancel the Jacksonville component of the GOP convention,” he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
“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,” he added.
The 2020 Republican National Convention was originally scheduled to take place in North Carolina, but was moved to Florida after the Governor of North Carolina pushed against having a large scale in-person event during the pandemic. In response, Trump and company re-located the event to Jacksonville for August 25-27, 2020.
BREAKING: President Trump cancels the Jacksonville, Florida, portion of the RNC due to the coronavirus: “I told my team it’s time to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, component of the GOP convention.” https://t.co/TiFztASCFb pic.twitter.com/btfm61kmTE
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 23, 2020
Despite activities being cancelled in Jacksonville, the official nomination process will still take place in Charlotte, North Carolina. In place of Jacksonville’s previously scheduled events, he will still hold “tele-rallies” virtually.
“I looked at my team and I said, the timing for this event is not right. It’s just not right with what’s happened recently, the flareup in Florida, to have a big convention, it’s not the right time,” he said.
As of this morning, the state of Florida has nearly 400,000 total COVID-19 cases. Furthermore, the state has reported 10,239 new COVID-19 cases and 173 COVID-19 related deaths.
