Doctor on Trump's Indoor Rally: 'People Will Die'

President Trump on Sunday night held his first entirely indoor rally since June, and despite the fact that officials in the host city of Henderson, Nevada, had issued a warning prior to the event, the rally did indeed appear to violate restrictions placed on gatherings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Per CNN, thousands attended and were "packed together"; Gov. Steve Sisolak has ordered that gatherings of no more than 50 are currently allowed in the state. On Sunday night, Sisolak issued a lengthy statement decrying the rally, Fox 5 Vegas reports. Among the words he used to describe it: "reckless," "selfish," "shameful," "dangerous," and "irresponsible." Sisolak notes the president's "own CDC" categorizes such an event as high-risk, but Trump "doesn’t believe the rules apply to him" and is putting Nevadans at risk for his own political gain. More:

• Trump supporters who spoke to CNN brushed off health concerns. "This is our First Amendment, it's my right to choose," said one 60-year-old. "This is not a dictatorship, this is a republic. And we have a right to be who we are and take whatever risks we so desire."

• News 3 Las Vegas also calls the crowd "maskless," though those in the stands directly behind Trump were mandated to wear masks; they were the ones who appeared on television. The campaign says masks were handed out and encouraged, but reports indicate few wore them.
• Trump has held multiple outdoor events since June, and his campaign did not explicitly state why an entirely indoor event was once again being held. But a campaign spokesperson did tell reporters, "If you can join tens of thousands of people protesting in the streets, gamble in a casino, or burn down small businesses in riots, you can gather peacefully under the First Amendment to hear from the President of the United States."
• One expert put it bluntly on CNN Sunday: "If you have a mass gathering now in the United States in a place like Nevada or just about any other place with hundreds of thousands of people, people will get infected and some of those people will die," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, said, per the Hill. He called the rally "negligent homicide," and a CNN column compares the whole thing to something straight out of The Hunger Games.
• As for what Trump talked about during his hourlong speech: a series of attacks on rival Joe Biden; the idea of mandatory prison sentences for flag burnings and the apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings of anyone who targets a cop; and praise for UFC fighters who attended the event. He also declared football "boring as hell," a week after his son Eric declared the sport "officially dead," per USA Today.

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