Trump Nixes Plan for GOP Convention in Jacksonville

It was the sort of short-term outlook that has been a centerpiece of President Trump’s approach to the coronavirus.

The long-planned convention in Charlotte would be scaled downward, the Trump campaign announced June 11, in favor of holding a more boisterous speech from the president in the city of Jacksonville. The reason for the change was explicit: Charlotte’s mayor was mandating procedures aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus. Those procedures meant masks and physically separated convention attendees. Trump, who wanted a loud crowd there to cheer him on,...

The Jacksonville, Fla., component of the Republican National Convention has been canceled, President Trump announced on Thursday, as cases of the coronavirus continue to spike across that state.

"I looked at my team and I said the timing for this event is not right. It's just not right with what's been happening," Trump said at the daily coronavirus briefing.

"They said 'Sir, we can make this work very easily.' ... I said there's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe, whether it's from the China virus...