South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Trump hosts party as virus takes toll
Face masks offered, but not required for evening event
WASHINGTON — Officials across the country pleaded with Americans to curb their enthusiasm for large Fourth of July crowds Saturday even as President Donald Trump enticed the masses with a “special evening” of tribute and fireworks staged with new U.S. coronavirus infections on the rise.
Several hours before Trump’s “Salute for America” celebration, people filed to the National Mall in baking heat and took shade under the scattered trees while, not far away, music wafted from a party on the White House South Lawn. To come: Trump’s speech from the White House grounds, a military air show and a more ambitious fireworks display than has been seen in years.
The early crowds were noticeably thinner than on the afternoon of last year’s jammed celebration on the National Mall. Many who showed up wore masks.
But not Pat Lee of Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania, or the two friends she came with — one a nurse from Fredericksburg, Virginia, whose only head gear was a MAGA hat.
“POTUS said it would go away,” Lee said of the pandemic, using an acronym for president of the United States. “Masks, I think, are like a hoax.” But she said she wore one inside the Trump International Hotel, where she stayed.
By the World War II Memorial, the National Park Service handed out packets of five white cloth masks to all who wanted them. People were not required to wear them.
At the White House, several hundred invited guests assembled on the South Lawn, gathering around tables decorated with flowers and small U.S. flags as a military rock band played. Most guests were unmasked.
In many parts of the country, authorities discouraged mass gatherings for the holiday after days that have seen COVID-19 cases grow at a rate not experienced even during the deadliest phase of the pandemic in the spring.
In New York, once the epicenter, people were urged to avoid crowds and Nathan’s Famous July Fourth hot dog eating contest happened at an undisclosed location without spectators, in advance of a televised fireworks spectacular over the Empire State Building.
In Philadelphia, maskand glove-wearing descendants of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence participated in a virtual tapping of the famed Liberty Bell on Independence Mall and people were asked to join from afar by clinking glasses or ringing bells.
In a presidential message Saturday on the 244th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Trump acknowledged that “over the past months, the American spirit has undoubtedly been tested by many challenges.”
His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, said in a statement that the U.S. “never lived up” to its founding principle that “all men are created equal,” but today “we have a chance to rip the roots of systemic racism out of this country.”
Trump planned to use the speech to salute the U.S. military and pay tribute to American values, heroes and accomplishment, according to a Trump aide who was not authorized to comment.
Trump’s endorsement of big gatherings at the National Mall and Friday’s event at Mount Rushmore came as many communities decided to scrap fireworks and other holiday traditions in hopes of avoiding yet more surges in infection.
Confirmed cases are climbing in 40 states, and the U.S. set another record Friday with more than 54,000 newly reported infections, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautions that mass gatherings present a high risk for spread of the virus. Yet Surgeon General Jerome Adams sidestepped when asked if he would caution a loved one against attending a large gathering. He said people should wear masks and otherwise make up their own mind.
Trump has been aching to see the nation return to normalcy, and has been willing to push the envelope farther than many states and big city mayors are willing to go.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser said she didn’t have the right to shut down the holiday spectacle because it’s on federal land. But she warned the federal government about the dangers of such a large crowd and told her constituents: “Just because someone invites you to a party doesn’t mean you have to go.”
For Trump and the country, it was another holiday clouded by a pandemic that the U.S. has failed to bring under control.
In late March, a little more than a week after he bowed to the need to shut down much of the country, Trump spoke of reopening with “packed” churches by Easter Sunday. He relented on that push as his medical advisers warned that it was far too ambitious.
Then he spent chunks of his Memorial Day weekend fuming about critics who he said were ignoring falling cases and deaths at the time.