The state of Nevada’s COVID-19 numbers are not great, and Donald Trump spent the weekend doing his part to make them worse. Trump held two rallies in Nevada, with the second being his first indoor rally since the Tulsa, Oklahoma, embarrassment. Sunday’s indoor rally was held at Xtreme Manufacturing in Henderson, and, with thousands of attendees, it definitely violated the state’s restriction on gatherings of 50 people or more. While the Trump campaign handed out masks, photos show many people in the crowd not wearing them.
State and local officials were not pleased, with the city of Henderson threatening fines of up to $500 per violation of the coronavirus guidelines and threatening Xtreme Manufacturing’s business license.
Gov. Steve Sisolak laid into Trump on Twitter, saying he was “taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada.”
”The President appears to have forgotten that this country is still in the middle of a global pandemic,” Sisolak tweeted. “Early on in this crisis, when it came time to exhibit real leadership and make difficult decisions to protect the American people, he failed to develop a unified national response strategy.”
Then Sisolak told us what he really thinks: “To put it bluntly: he didn’t have the guts to make tough choices—he left that to governors and the states. Now he’s decided he doesn’t have to respect our State’s laws. As usual, he doesn’t believe the rules apply to him.”
Trump had tried to set Sisolak up as an oppressor of the people by falsely claiming Sisolak had been the one to bar him from holding a rally at the Reno-Tahoe airport, when in fact it was airport officials who made that call. In Xtreme Manufacturing, he found a host willing to ignore state restrictions and public health concerns. The company’s owner was already fined once for violating the 50-person limit for an “Evangelicals for Trump” event at a hotel he owns.