In visiting the US-Mexico border, Trump seeks to vary the topic to a problem he thinks will help electrify his base
President Donald Trump visited the US-Mexico border Tuesday and tried to credit his new wall with stopping both undocumented immigration and therefore the coronavirus.
In the blazing heat, Trump briefly stopped to examine a replacement section of the concrete and rebar structure where the president and other officials took a flash to scrawl their signatures on the wall.
"It stopped COVID, it stopped everything," Trump said.
Trump was looking to regain campaign momentum after his weekend rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was alleged to be a symbol of the nation's reopening. Low turnout for the rally, however, sharpened the main target on Trump's visit to Arizona, which doubles as both a 2020 battleground state and a surging coronavirus hot spot.
By visiting the border, Trump sought to vary the topic to a problem he believes will help electrify his base in November.
"Our border has never been safer," Trump declared as he met with Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey and federal patrol officials.
Later within the day, Trump addressed a gaggle of young Republicans at a Phoenix megachurch. The "Students for Trump" event at the Dream City Church is a component of a special project of Turning Point Action, a gaggle chaired by Trump ally Charlie Kirk.
President Trump's supporters make their way through protesters outside the Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona [Ash Ponders/Reuters]
Campaign officials stressed that such rallies would remain a staple of the president's re-election strategy but allowed that they'll, in certain states, got to change slightly. Discussions were underway about having them in additional modest venues or outdoors, perhaps in airplane hangars and amphitheaters, or in smaller cities faraway from likely protesters.
Trump's visit to the Phoenix church comes on an equivalent day that vice-chairman Mike Pence began a faith-centered tour, highlighting the central position that religious conservatives - particularly white evangelicals, but also right-leaning Catholics - still occupy within the president's base. Yet, whilst Trump's campaign overtly courts religious voters, there are signs of softening support among voting blocs the president cannot afford to lose.
Trump's specialize in the development of his long-promised border wall is also meant to prop up support together with his most loyal supporters.
His administration has promised to create 450 miles (724 kilometers) by the top of the year, but that seems unlikely. the govt has awarded quite $6.1bn in construction contracts since April 2019 for various projects along the border. it's also waived procurement rules that critics say make the method of awarding multimillion-dollar contracts secretive and opaque.
Throughout the trip, the COVID-19 pandemic is shadowing Trump. Since late May, Arizona has emerged together of the nation's most active hot spots for the spread of COVID-19, with disturbing trends in several benchmarks, including the share of tests that prove positive for the virus, which is that the highest within the nation.
The state reported a replacement daily record of nearly 3,600 additional coronavirus cases Tuesday as Arizona continued to line records for the number of individuals hospitalized, in medical care, and on ventilators for COVID-19. Arizona's total caseload within the pandemic has reached a minimum of 58,179, with 42 more deaths reported Tuesday, raising the price to 1,384.
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