Confusion as Republicans plan to ban media from Trump convention
REPORTERS are set to be banned from the Republican National Convention, which will be held behind closed doors for the first time in its 164-year history as it votes to renominate Donald Trump.
However, there is confusion around the planned ban after one Republican official insisted no decision had yet been made,
According to a spokeswoman for the Republican National Convention, only 336 people will attend the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, later this month, where they will cast proxy votes on behalf of more than 2,500 official delegates who would normally have been expected to attend.
“Given the health restrictions and limitations in place within the state of North Carolina, we are planning for the Charlotte activities to be closed [to the] press Friday, August 21 to Monday, August 24,” a convention spokeswoman said.
Normally, nominating conventions are a vast jamboree, designed to boost party morale and give maximum media exposure to the presidential nominee.
Last week Donald Trump announced that the party had cancelled plans for a full-scale convention in Jacksonville, Florida, because of the surge in Covid-19, opting for the scaled-down event in Charlotte.
However, a Republican National Committee official later yesterday contradicted the convention official’s statement, insisting no final decisions had been made and that logistics and press coverage options were still being evaluated,
If the Republican decision stands, it will be the first party nominating convention in modern history to be closed to reporters.
Privately, some Republican delegations have raised logistical issues with travelling to either city, citing the increasing number of jurisdictions imposing mandatory quarantine orders on travellers returning from states experiencing surges in the virus.
Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows vowed the November 3 election would go ahead and that President Donald Trump had been raising concerns about mail-in ballots when he floated the idea last week of delaying the US vote.
“We’re going to hold an elec
Another spokesman said no final decision had been made
tion on November 3 and the president is going to win,” Mr Meadows said in an interview.
Last Thursday, Mr Trump raised the idea of delaying the US elections, a proposal that was immediately rejected by both Democrats and his fellow Republicans in Congress – the sole branch of government with the authority to make such a change.
Critics and even Mr Trump’s allies dismissed the notion as an attempt to distract from devastating economic news, but some legal experts warned that his repeated attacks could undermine his supporters’ faith in the election process.
The Republican president has been trying to undermine confidence in mail-in balloting, claiming repeatedly and without evidence that it would lead to widespread voter fraud.
Mr Meadows took up his boss’s cause in TV interviews yesterday, warning that mail-in ballots must be handled properly without providing evidence that they have not been in the past.
Asked whether it were irresponsible for Mr Trump to float the idea, Mr Meadows skirted the question, saying: “It is responsible for him to say that if we try to go to 100pc universal mail-in ballots, will we have an election result on November 3? Now I would suggest we wouldn’t even have it on January 1.”