Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that he and President Donald Trump are "really disappointed" that the entire Republican National Convention can't be held in North Carolina. However, the combination of holding some official activities in Charlotte and then having major speeches given in Jacksonville, Florida, will be a "great, great kickoff to the fall campaign."
The Republican National Committee is still working out the details for the convention, Pence said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "The reality is that North Carolina is not willing to give us the assurance that by the convention date in August we'd be able to bring people together," said Pence.
Trump said earlier this month that the convention would have to be held in another state because of social distancing restrictions ordered by North Carolina's Democrat Governor Roy Cooper, who would not allow the arena to be used as "originally anticipated and promised" because of concerns over the coronavirus.
Pence, meanwhile, said Tuesday that while there are some parts of the country where COVID-19 numbers are climbing, "the reality is there's roughly only 11 counties in America out of more than 3,100 counties that are seeing acceleration in new cases and less than 2% of the counties in the entire country are seeing a significant increase in cases."
He called the numbers a "tribute to the American people" and to the progress that the administration is making.
"As we told governors yesterday, as we go into this summer season, we're deploying CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) personnel, deploying resources to essentially focus on those outbreaks," said Pence. "But we've made great progress as a nation and I think the American people could be encouraged that in the weeks and months ahead every day we're going to continue to put the coronavirus further in the past. We're going to safely reopen America and we're going to have a great election this fall."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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