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Trump also told reporters at the White House that he would
announce a new location soon for a speech in August accepting
the Republican Party's nomination for president.
Campaign advisers say the site is expected to be Jacksonville,
Florida, although Trump said places in Texas and Georgia were
also in the mix. On Thursday in Dallas, Trump will attend his
first in-person fundraiser since the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Trump has been eager to get back on the road to promote his
candidacy before the Nov. 3 election after a three-month hiatus
brought on by the coronavirus, which has killed more than
112,000 people in the United States, the most in the world.
In the interim, Trump's standing in the polls has eroded as
voters render judgment on his handling of the virus and, more
recently, the protests that erupted over the death in
Minneapolis police custody of African American George Floyd
(https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests/george-floyds-brother-decries-a-modern-day-lynching-in-testimony-to-congress-idUSKBN23H1NB).
Trump has called Floyd's death a "grave tragedy" but so far has
not offered a path for improving race relations.
He said his first rally is expected for June 19 in Tulsa and
that others would follow in Florida, Texas and Arizona.
June 19 is known as Juneteenth, a day to commemorate the
emancipation in 1865 of the last remaining enslaved African
Americans in the Confederacy. Tulsa is where white residents
attacked black residents and businesses in 1921 in what is known
as the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Kamau Marshall, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of
Trump's Democratic election opponent Joe Biden, condemned
Trump's choice of venue as "racist" on Twitter.
The Republican National Convention, where Trump will be
nominated, had been planned for Charlotte, North Carolina, but
the state's Democratic governor Roy Cooper is refusing to allow
the crowd size that Trump wants in order to maintain social
distancing during the pandemic.
Trump described the governor as "a little bit behind" and added,
"... unfortunately we're going to probably be having no choice
but to move the Republican convention to another location.
That'll be announced shortly."
Trump and his campaign are looking for other sites where most of
the convention business will be conducted.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Additional reporting
by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Grant McCool)
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