Eleven people have been hospitalized while waiting for a rally featuring Donald Thursday in Phoenix, where temperatures climbed to a sweltering 110 degrees and lingered in the triple digits.
City fire officials confirmed that number at 3 p.m. local time, saying all had been transported to local hospitals due to heat exhaustion while waiting to get into a Turning Point rally featuring the former president. Reporters on the scene shared video and photos on social media of rally attendees being carried off in stretchers and receiving intravenous fluids outside the venue.
Extreme heat waves like the one spreading across the Southwest right now are expected to become more common as the climate continues to warm ― something scientists say is directly linked to humans’ carbon output. But Trump appeared unfazed by that during his speech.
“Our country’s falling to pieces, and these guys ― all they want to do is spend money on the ‘green new scam,’” Trump said at the rally, a reference to the Green New Deal, a Democrat-backed plan from 2019 to address climate change and shift to renewable energy resources.
“I mean the things they’re spending money on, it’s like throwing the money out the window,” Trump continued. “And we don’t want to do that. We want to fix our roads and highways. We want to get rid of the electric mandate for the car. … If you want to buy a different type of car, you have to have a choice.”
The extremely high temperatures sweeping the Southwest have prompted excessive heat warnings across southeast California, southern Nevada and Arizona. The National Weather Service said the heat peaked Thursday but will remain high over the next few days.