If the Trump administration’s tenure in office were a metaphor it would be the rally at Omaha’s Eppley Airfield Tuesday. As the racism pep rally wound to a close and the temperature nosedived to near freezing, Trump sat in the warmth of Air Force One while thousands of MAGAts stood on the overcrowded runways with no idea if they’d ever make it home.
According to the Washington Post, “The buses, the huge crowd soon learned, couldn’t navigate the jammed airport roads. For hours, attendees—including many elderly Trump supporters—stood in the cold, as police scrambled to help those most at-risk get to warmth.” Seven people were reportedly taken to a local hospital.
The Trump campaign claims that they provided all the buses needed to get everyone off the airfield, but as with most things Trump-related, the buses weren’t the problem, it was that “traffic on the two-lane road outside the airport was throttled to one direction after the rally,” according to a tweet from Aaron Sanderford, a political reporter at the Omaha World-Herald.
The inability to reach racism rally goers and the freezing temperatures and lack of mask and abundance of stupidity added to the health risks. Some 6,000 people attended the racism hoedown, and despite masks being provided for them, many attendees said “fuck those masks” and went barefaced into the cold wind, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
Trump reportedly flew away on his wife’s broomstick around 9 p.m. and around 10:30 p.m. people were still on the airfield, just milling around being cold AF.
“President Trump took off in Air Force One 1 hr 20 minutes ago, but thousands of his supporters remain stranded on a dark road outside the rally,” tweeted CNN’s Jeff Zeleny.
The Post notes that at one point, police began letting people sit in their cars to warm up. Crowds didn’t fully clear the area until after 12:30 a.m.—some 3½ hours after Trump departed.
“Supporters of the President were brought in, but buses weren’t able to get back to transport people out. It’s freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight,” tweeted Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt (D). “He truly does not care about you.”
If only Melania had a jacket that summed up how the Trump administration truly felt about those stranded.
