Trump Suggests Look of GOP Convention Could Change Again as Pandemic Surges in Florida: ‘We’re Very Flexible’

President Donald Trump told former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren that the Republican Party has a number of options for changing the look of its presidential nominating convention next month if the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread: “We’re very flexible.”

In an interview for her program Full Court Press, Van Susteren pressed the president on the party’s response to the ominous pandemic situation in Florida, where coronavirus cases have skyrocketed in recent weeks. After North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper refused to guarantee that he would allow a full arena to attend Trump’s renomination speech, the GOP relocated the more prominent speeches and primetime TV events to Jacksonville. However, that city has been one of the biggest outbreak areas in Florida, experiencing a wave of emergency rooms admissions for Covid-19 as the city’s home country, Duval reported nearly 800 new daily cases just before the 4th of July weekend. As a result, the Department Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that it was dispatching a temporary surge testing effort to Jacksonville, one of just three hotspots in the nation.

“If the numbers continue to go up in Florida and continue to spike, maybe because of testing or whatever, but the numbers are going up, would you consider not having as big a convention?” Van Susteren asked.

“We’re always looking at different things,” Trump replied. “We wanted to be in North Carolina, that almost worked out, but the [North Carolina] governor [Roy Cooper] didn’t want to have people use the arena. ”

“Then we went to Florida and when we went, when we signed a few weeks ago it looked good. All of sudden it’s spiking up a little and that’s going to go down,” Trump claimed, echoing his recent, false prediction that the coronavirus will “just disappear” soon. “It really depends on the timing, we’re really flexible, we can do a lot of things, but we’re very flexible.”