Biden Campaign Manager on Trump Rallies: ‘People Will Die’

People cheer for President Donald Trump after he spoke during an indoor campaign rally at Xtreme Manufacturing in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, Nev., on Sept. 13, 2020. Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign manager called Trump rallies “super spreader” events and claimed that “people will die” due to failure to comply with guidance sought to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

“People will die because of these types of events and that’s from the president of the United States,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon told Politico on Sept. 15. “And you look at folks that might not be wearing masks or aren’t taking this seriously and you understand how that’s the case.”

O’Malley Dillon referenced an indoor rally President Donald Trump held in Nevada and said the president is not doing enough to enforce the guidelines created by his own administration. She also pointed to the signing of a peace deal at the White House on Tuesday where attendees sat shoulder to shoulder and didn’t wear masks.

O’Malley Dillon called the peace deal signing “another day-after-day episode showing the fact that the president of the United States is taking guidelines from medical experts about what to do in a pandemic to stay safe and help make sure your colleagues and neighbors are safe, and not executing it at the White House.”

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Xtreme Manufacturing in Henderson, Nev., on Sept. 13, 2020. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Circumstantial evidence in the form of dozens of observational studies suggests that masks and social distancing may help with the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the coronavirus. No randomized control trials have been completed to offer direct evidence that either measure works.

Biden supports the peace deal that Israel, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain signed on Tuesday. O’Malley Dillon nonetheless said the Biden campaign will continue to focus on Trump’s handling of the pandemic because he “continues to just suggest that we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic and it’s really problematic.”

When the president was asked on Tuesday whether indoor rallies were safe, he said that the governor of Nevada forced the rally indoors by prohibiting the campaign from using outside venues.

“We didn’t want an indoor rally, but we did an indoor rally. They spaced as much as they could have, but the governor could have solved the problem. All he had to do was let us use one of the outdoor venues. Plus, they had 25,000 people outside of the venue that couldn’t get in,” Trump said.

“But it’s very interesting: When they have protests, that’s okay. When they have violence, when they have anarchists and they have agitators, that’s okay.”

Trump’s campaign events are sharply distinct from the ones run by the Biden campaign. The president regularly draws large, raucous crowds. Biden, in the meantime, has opted from sparsely attended events with all of the attendees spread six feet apart.