North Carolina Trump Rally Contradicts White House's COVID-19 Advice

President Donald Trump's campaign rally in North Carolina reportedly contradicted the White House's guidance for safety measures due to the rate of positive cases in the state.

A White House Coronavirus Task Force weekly briefing for governors issued on September 6 obtained by ABC News lists North Carolina as being in a "red zone" for cases and a "yellow zone" for test positivity rate, ABC 11 reports.

The report makes several recommendations, with the first, according to ABC 11, being to "encourage aggressive public messaging campaign and use of data to encourage local ordinances to enforce social distancing and mask mandates." The report's third recommendation, according to ABC 11, is to "identify which groups are not wearing face coverings and target educational efforts to them."

Both recommendations seem to contract Tuesday's rally in Winston-Salem in which many audience members appeared to ignore social distancing guidelines and weren't wearing masks, despite being given masks and encouraged to wear them by event staff. President Trump also seemed to imply that the COVID-19 safety guidelines were politically motivated, claiming states would "be open" after the 2020 Presidential Election.

"It's a shame what's going on, and I'll tell you what, on Nov. 4, every one of those states will be open. They're doing it for political reasons."

While speaking to the North Carolina audience, the president added, "Your state should be open," and encouraged the crowd to vote out Gov. Roy Cooper.

The September 6 weekly White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing listed North Carolina as the 18th highest state in the U.S. for COVID-19 cases, jumping two spots from the previous week, ABC 11 reports.

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