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President Trump said Monday that campaign rallies like the one he had planned for later that evening in Charlotte, N.C., are “very safe.”

“Well, these were set up a long time ago and others are,” Trump told reporters. “You could ask that to the Democrats because they’re having a lot of rallies. They’re all having rallies. That’s what they’re doing. They’re campaigning.”

Asked whether he was worried about whether large gatherings were safe, the president replied: “I think it’s very safe.”

Despite Trump’s assurances at a White House news conference on Feb. 27 that the number of coronavirus cases in the United States was “going very substantially down, not up,” the tally of those infected has continued to rise. As of Monday morning, 87 U.S. citizens had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and six people…