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Trump Has Now Abandoned Rallygoers in Freezing Cold and Dead of Night

Supporters in Georgia and Pennsylvania were stranded after rallies over the weekend in what's become a pattern for the Trump campaign.
President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Supporters of President Donald Trump who attended his rallies in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Rome, Georgia, this weekend were left stranded in cold temperatures late at night after the events had ended.

On Saturday, Trump swung through the Pittsburgh suburb during a day of rallies in Pennsylvania. Afterwards, thousands of supporters waited, some for more than two hours, in near-freezing temperatures because crowded roads delayed buses that were meant to take them back to their cars, according to TribLive

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Some reportedly gave up and just began walking back to their cars.

Trump campaign communication director Tim Murtaugh called the tweets by CNN reporters DJ Judd and Ryan Nobles reporting the delays “fake news” and tweeted a picture of people boarding a bus.

The scene was reminiscent of the aftermath of last week’s Trump rally in Omaha, in which seven people were taken to the hospital after waiting hours for buses to take them back to their cars. A few days later, a dozen people were hospitalized due to heat exposure at a rally in Tampa. 

And that’s not to mention the COVID-19 super-spreading. An analysis of 18 Trump rallies published Friday by Stanford researchers projected that the events “ultimately resulted in more than 30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19,” as well as more than 700 deaths. 

The owners of Campbell Bus Lines said there were enough buses at the Butler rally, but not enough room to navigate the small country roads around the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport, where the rally took place. “As soon as the traffic was cleared, we were sending buses,” Todd Campbell told TribLive, adding that the area had cleared out by 10 p.m. 

On Sunday, after a Trump rally in Rome, Georgia, more attendees were stranded after Trump departed the event for another rally in Florida. “Some people were sitting and lying on the ground. It’s 46 degrees and windy in the area tonight,” NBC News reporter Julie Tsirkin tweeted. 

During the rally in Georgia, Trump remarked on the crowds at his rallies. “100 miles long of cars— these things have never happened before,” he said. “These crowds have never happened before."