Trump visits Mount Rushmore amid virus concerns.
Speaking to a largely maskless crowd at Mount Rushmore, President Donald Trump said Friday that protesters have waged “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history” amid demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality.
The sharp rebuke in a holiday address to mark the nation’s independence follows weeks of protests across the nation, sparked by the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Some demonstrators have also destroyed or damaged Confederate monuments and statues honoring those who have benefited from slavery.
“This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore,“Trump said, adding that some on the political left hope to “defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.“
His speech, intended to rev up his conservative base, comes as Trump has seen his standing slump over his handling of the pandemic and response to protests and unrest around the country. With four months until the election, Trump’s hopes for a second term — once buoyed by low unemployment and a roaring stock market — seem uncertain.
Amid the headwinds, Trump has sharpened his focus on his most ardent base of supporters as concern grows inside his campaign that his poll numbers in the battleground states that will decide the 2020 election are slipping.
Trump in recent weeks has increasingly lashed out at “left-wing mobs,“used a racist epithet to refer to the coronavirus and visited the nation’s southern border to spotlight progress on his 2016 campaign promise to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The event, while not a campaign rally, had the feel of one as the friendly crowd greeted Trump with chants of “Four more years!” and cheered enthusiastically as he and first lady Melania Trump took the stage.
“Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity, so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America’s destiny,” Trump said.
The event drew thousands of spectators, most of them without masks, even as coronavirus cases spike across the country. The president was set to speak before a big fireworks show, the first to be held at the site in over a decade.
Late Friday, campaign officials announced Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of President Donald Trump’s oldest son, has contracted the coronavirus.
Sergio Gor, chief of staff to the Trump campaign’s finance committee, says Guilfoyle was immediately isolated after the positive result to limit exposure. He says she will be retested to confirm the diagnosis because she isn’t showing any symptoms of COVID-19, the disease the virus causes. Gor says Guilfoyle is doing well and canceling her public events.
Gor says Donald Trump Jr. tested negative but is selfisolating as a precaution. He is also canceling his public events.
The couple was in South Dakota to hold fundraisers for Trump’s reelection.
Hours before the event, protesters blocked a road leading to the monument. Authorities worked to move the demonstrators, mostly Native Americans protesting that South Dakota’s Black Hills were taken from the Lakota people against treaty agreements.
The president has spoken forcefully against other protesters in Washington, D.C., and other cities who have tried to topple Confederate monuments and statues honoring those who have benefited from slavery, planned to target “the left wing mob and those practicing cancel culture,“said a person familiar with his remarks and describing them only on condition of anonymity.
The president was to preside over a fireworks display at an event expected to draw thousands, even as coronavirus cases spike across the country.
Trump was expecting a South Dakota show of support, with the state Republican Party selling T-shirts that feature Trump on the memorial alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. But concern about the coronavirus risk and wildfire danger from the fireworks, along with the Native American groups’ protests were also present.
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, a Trump ally, has said social distancing won’t be required during the event and masks will be optional. Event organizers were to provide masks to anyone who wanted them and plannedto screen attendees for symptoms of COVID-19.
The Republican mayor of the largest city near the monument, Rapid City, said he would be watching for an increase in cases after the event, the Rapid City Journal reported.
Enthusiastic attendees were unlikely to disqualify themselves “because they developed a cough the day of or the day before,” Mayor Steve Allender said.
When asked about the Mount Rushmore event, Max Reiss, a spokesman for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, said, “I will direct you to the event we held (Thursday) where the governor, lieutenant governor, and interim public health commissioner made comments echoing how our continued low transmission and positivity rates have to do with our collective actions here in Connecticut like wearing masks and social distancing.
“Additionally, we just launched a statewide public health messaging campaign, ‘Connecticut Respect,’ with an emphasis on wearing masks. If you go to our Twitter and YouTube accounts you can find our PSAs on masks featuring UConn basketball coach Geno Auriemma, Stew Leonard, a lifeguard, and a Southern Connecticut State University political science professor urging people to get tested.
“Our push for all Connecticut residents to wear masks, we feel, is the important message our state needs to hear and see,” Reiss said.
The small town of Keystone, which lies a couple of miles from the monument, was buzzing with people Friday hoping to catch a glimpse of the fireworks and the president. Many wore pro-Trump
T-shirts and hats. Few wore masks.
Robin Pladsen, director of the Keystone Chamber of Commerce, handed out face masks and hand sanitizer from a tent. She said the tourist influx would help businesses pay back loans they had taken out to survive the economic downtown but acknowledged the health risk for the town.
Leaders of several Native American tribes in the region also raised concerns that the event could lead to virus outbreaks among their members, who they say are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 because of an underfunded health care system and chronic health conditions.
“The president is putting our tribal members at risk to stage a photo op at one of our most sacred sites,” said Harold Frazier, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.
Some Native American groups used Trump’s visit to protest the Mount Rushmore memorial itself, pointing out that the Black Hills were taken from the Lakota people.
Security for the event itself was tight. The governor’s spokesperson, Maggie Seidel, would not say whether the South Dakota National Guard was being deployed, but said organizers are making sure it is a safe event.
Several people who once oversaw fire danger at the national memorial have said setting off fireworks over the forest was a bad idea that could lead to a large wildfire. Fireworks were called off after 2009 because a mountain pine beetle infestation increased the fire risks.
Noem pushed to get the fireworks resumed soon after she was elected, and enlisted Trump’s help. The president brushed aside fire concerns earlier this year, saying, “What can burn? It’s stone.”
Staff writer Meghan Friedmann, the Associated Press and the Washington Post contributed to this report.