Multiple MAGA supporters have been hospitalized with a mysterious illness following the former president’s rally in Tucson, Arizona last week, leaving more questions than answers about what may have been floating through the air as campaign officials seek to locate patient zero.
Newsweek reported a significant number of attendees to the September 12th rally have checked themselves into hospitals after experiencing eye discomfort, facial swelling, and itching. The large-scale event drew over 2,000 people close together in 100+ degree heat, giving rise to the possibility that close contact triggered some type of disease spreading among the crowd. Officials with the campaign told the outlet that they are working to trace back the source of the outbreak while a Secret Service spokesman said there was no reported or suspected threat in advance of the rally. Likewise, nothing out of the ordinary occurred that day, he said.
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Logistically, the rally was planned so that 48 attendees could stand on stage behind former President Donald Trump – half on one side and half on the other. Interestingly, those on stage left reported no symptoms days after the event while those on stage right reported “excruciating pain in their eyes,” Newsweek added. One of those victims is Mayra Rodriguez, a former Planned Parenthood director turned Trump supporter, who told News 4 Tucson that following the rally her eyes began to badly burn and it became hard to see. Concerned that she may have somehow been sprayed with mace or an aerosol of some kind, she checked herself into a local hospital.
Rodriguez added that she was still in pain days after the episode. “I can’t see anything. When I try to open my eyes it’s like a white cloud of cover. It hurts,” she said. Another woman simply described the symptoms as “horrible” while a man on stage right said of the experience, “My eyes were red like hell, it was terrible, I just couldn’t handle it.” Kathleen Winn, a Trump supporter and former congressional candidate, expressed sympathy for those who joined her at the rally and prayed that the outbreak wasn’t intentional. “We hope there’s no nefarious actors in this and this is not a strategic hit,” she told the local station.
At the rally, President Trump repeated his pledge to eliminate taxes on tips for service workers, a popular policy that was quickly stolen by Vice President Kamala Harris who was also in town that night for a private reception. The dueling campaign appearances come as polls show a neck-and-neck race in the battleground Sun Belt state; a September 17th poll put Trump and Harris at 46% apiece, though an amalgam of polls gives Trump a 0.8% sliver of a lead. MAGA supporters in the state are also hoping the campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake boosts turnout among low-voting conservatives who may be motivated to come out in a year when their vote could prove crucial to deciding the election.
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