U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during a rally in Orlando, Florida, U.S., on Tuesday, June 18, 2019.
Marco Bello | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Trump campaign is gearing up to start holding rallies again in the next two weeks, more than three months after the coronavirus pandemic forced President Donald Trump to scrap his signature campaign events.
The president’s advisors are still ironing out the details on how the rallies can safely be held, and campaign manager Brad Parscale is planning to present Trump with options in the next few days, Politico reported Monday. Trump campaign director Tim Murtaugh confirmed the report to CNBC.
“Americans are ready to get back to action and so is President Trump,” Parscale told NBC News in a statement. “The Great American Comeback is real, and the rallies will be tremendous.”
Trump’s last rally was held on March 2 in Charlotte, North Carolina, before former Vice President Joe Biden became the apparent Democratic nominee. The deadly coronavirus by that time had already grown into a major threat, but Trump said prior to the event that he thinks campaign rallies are “very safe.”
In the months following that campaign stop, however, Trump has mainly stayed put at the White House.
The president has been eager to get back on the campaign trail and has recently been asking advisors why his rallies are still off the table when massive, nationwide protests are being held over the death of George Floyd, NBC reported, citing two officials familiar with the campaign’s plans.
The transition comes as Trump is ceding ground to Biden in multiple national polls. Biden’s polling lead over Trump has significantly widened since last month, a polling aggregate from RealClearPolitics shows, as Trump faces criticism over his handling of the pandemic and his response to the protests over Floyd’s death.
At least 110,000 people in the U.S. have died from Covid-19 so far, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.
Trump has repeatedly mocked Biden for campaigning from his home basement in Delaware, although the former vice president has started to appear elsewhere.
Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the Trump campaign’s plan.