(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said the Republican Party has been “forced to seek” a new city for its national convention, planned for Charlotte, North Carolina, in August, because of coronavirus restrictions put in place by the state’s governor.
The president, in a series of tweets on Tuesday night, did not say what other cities were being considered or if the party was definitely pulling out of Charlotte.
“Had long planned to have the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place I love,” Trump said. “Now, @NC_Governor Roy Cooper and his representatives refuse to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena - Spend millions of dollars, have everybody arrive, and then tell them they will not be able to gain entry. Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised.”
State officials and party leaders have been negotiating the logistics of the event in a time of social distancing. Finding a new venue now would be an enormous undertaking.
Cooper, a Democrat, has asked that the convention be scaled back out of concern about the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter Monday responding to Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel and the committee’s president, Marcia Lee Kelly, Cooper said his state could not agree to their demands for a “‘full convention’ which includes 19,000 delegates,” as well as “full hotels and restaurants and bars at capacity.”
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