Following his rally Tuesday night in Omaha, President Donald Trump continued on his campaign trail, literally leaving his supporters out in the cold.
Trump held a rally at Eppley Airfield in Nebraska and buses were supposed to shuttle attendees from the airport road to a distant parking lot several miles away, but the buses couldn’t navigate the jammed airport roads, according to the Washington Post leaving thousands to fend for themselves in the cold. Jeff Zeleny, a CNN reporter tweeted he heard an Omaha police officer saying they need at least 30 more buses for the attendees.
Many attendees, who waited more than four hours to hear Trump speak, were forced to stand out in the cold as the wind chill dropped the nighttime temperature into the 20s. Police officers tried their best to scramble rides for attendees, but the entire crowd wasn’t cleared until after midnight.
Meanwhile, the president left the airport from Air Force One just after 9 p.m.
Newsweek reported several people were rushed to a local hospital and treated for hyperthermia including an elderly couple with an altered mental status. Omaha Scanner, which monitors police radio calls, reported two groups of senior-age Trump supporters also needed assistance from the police, with one of the groups frozen in the cold and unable to move.
Trump easily won the state by 25 points in 2016, but 2020 is a different story. Trump is still leading in the state but by less than eight points
. The president is planning on traveling to Florida Wednesday, another state where he is in trouble due to his lackluster response to the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on senior citizens.Trump barely won the state in 2016, but it was smooth sailing in the state for him until the coronavirus hit the area, hard.
Millions quickly found themselves unemployed due to the state’s large tourism, hotel, and restaurant industries and the state’s
Gov. Ron DeSantis admitted the previous governor, Rick Scott, intentionally designed the state’s unemployment system to make it as hard as possible to get benefits.Additionally, Trump’s inability to take the coronavirus seriously has also affected the state’s large senior population. Seniors in the state have gotten angry and activated watching friends die of the virus while Trump continues to say the virus is going away and walk around without a mask despite contracting the virus himself.