Several people who attended GOP nominee former President Donald Trump’s rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday required medical attention due to heat, with more than a dozen people being transported to nearby hospitals.
Medics at the event responded to 44 heat-related calls, including people suffering from heat illness and bouts of fainting. At least one person sent to the hospital was reported in critical condition. Another person onsite suffered from cardiac arrest.
Although the rally took place indoors, rally goers appeared at the arena and waited outside for several hours. Temperatures reached 89 degrees, with humidity and direct sun beating down on attendees.
This isn’t the first event where Trump supporters have suffered from extreme heat.
In June, a campaign event in Arizona saw 11 people hospitalized due to high temperatures leading to similar medical problems. Heat was also problematic during Trump’s 2020 run — 17 individuals required medical attention (including 12 who were hospitalized) at an event in Florida that year when attendees were subjected to high-80-degree temperatures and humid conditions for several hours.
The latest episode of excessive heat conditions at a Trump rally comes on the heels of the two hottest days ever recorded on Earth. Sunday broke the previous record, only for Monday to hit even hotter temperatures on average across the globe.
Despite repeated instances of his own supporters suffering the effects of excessive heat, likely due to the climate crisis, Trump continues to be a denier of climate change, repeatedly describing it as a “hoax” over the past several years, including this year as a candidate for the White House.
As president, Trump undermined dozens of environmental regulations, including many that were previously established to address the warming of the planet. Trump also avoided a question on the climate crisis during his debate with President Joe Biden in June, refusing to say if his future administration would “take any action” to address it and instead ranting about unrelated topics.
Environmentalists expect another Trump presidency to be a disaster for the climate.
“Trump already has a record on pretty much denying the climate crisis and repealing environmental regulations and essentially just clearing the path for fossil fuel expansion. … We know what he did last time, and we have an even better understanding of how backwards it could get,” said John Noël, senior climate campaigner with Greenpeace USA.
But it’s becoming increasingly hard for Trump and other Republicans to deny the crisis is real. There’s even some evidence to suggest that the attempt on Trump’s life could be blamed, in part, on the observed rise in temperatures. According to at least one whistleblower, a law enforcement officer was supposed to be stationed on the roof where a shooter had targeted Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month. That officer, however, allegedly abandoned their post because it was too hot to stay up there.
Temperatures were indeed much higher than usual in that part of the state that day. In nearby Pittsburgh, temperatures exceeded 90 degrees, well above the projected high of around 83 degrees for the date the rally took place. Indeed, due to the shooting, heat-related medical situations at the Butler rally that day were largely ignored.
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