CNN’s Jake Tapper said health experts were disturbed by images from President Donald Trump’s speech on Thursday night as a “potential super-spreader event” for the coronavirus.
Trump spoke to a crowd of about 1,500 people as he accepted his party’s nomination during the Republican National Convention in an ethics-defying political event at the White House.
“Forget the Hatch Act violations,” Tapper said, referring to ethics rules against political use of government property. “We’re getting into a matter of life and death here.”
The seats were spaced close together, with no social distancing measures in place, and few masks were seen among the attendees ― most of whom were not tested before entering the event.
“I’ve been talking to health officials across the country who are just abjectly mortified by what they’re seeing from the South Lawn, which looks like a potential super-spreader event,” Tapper said:
Tapper noted that more Americans have died of the coronavirus since the start of the RNC this week than were killed during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The CNN host also cited Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard Global Health Institute as calling the gathering “deeply irresponsible.”
Jha added on Twitter:
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