President Trump will end his months-long confinement at the White House with a visit next week to the presidential battleground state of Arizona, he announced Wednesday.
During a roundtable with business executives at the White House, Trump confirmed he’d “start to move around” the country and said he hoped that, eventually, he could hold more of his trademark rallies.
“I think I’m going to Arizona next week and we look forward to that, and I’m going, I hope, to Ohio very soon,” Trump told reporters.
Earlier Wednesday, The Post detailed how Trump’s aides were looking at possible travel for the president, who has grown frustrated with being confined amid the coronavirus pandemic — leaving the White House only once in the past seven weeks.
He said the Arizona event would be at an industry site because it was “too soon to for everybody to get together and stand next to each other.”
Bloomberg News reported that the visit could be a tour of a facility manufacturing personal protective equipment, such as face masks.
Advisers and other people close to the president have been encouraging him to visit businesses involved in the fight against COVID-19 in an attempt to turn the tide of negative press about his daily briefings, sources told The Post.
With the November election looming, Trump said he longed to hold more of the raucous rallies, some of which he was forced to cancel at the start of the outbreak.
“Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we’ll have some massive rallies and people will be sitting next to each other. I can’t imagine a rally where you have every fourth seat full, every six seats are empty for every one you have full. That wouldn’t look too good,” he said.
“I hope we’ll be able to do some good old-fashioned, 25,000-person rallies where everybody is going wild because they love our country,” he continued.
Trump is eager to reconnect with everyday Americans affected by the outbreak and wants to travel as soon as possible, sources said.
The president announced earlier this month that he would deliver the commencement address at United States Military Academy’s 2020 graduation ceremony at West Point on June 13.
Vice President Mike Pence has recently made trips, including a visit to staff and infected patients at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Tuesday.
Pence toured the facility without a mask, although the clinic requires all visitors to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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