White House, Gettysburg Are President Trump’s Top Picks For Republican Nomination Acceptance Speech

President Trump said Monday he would deliver his Republican nomination acceptance speech either from the White House or the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of President Lincoln’s famed address.

Trump in recent weeks was forced to abandon plans for a convention venue in Jacksonville, Florida, as coronavirus surged across the state. He had earlier nixed delivery at the original convention site in Charlotte, North Carolina, after Gov. Roy Cooper demanded coronavirus mitigation plans from organizers.

Democrats announced last week presumptive nominee Joe Biden would deliver his acceptance speech from his Delaware home.

Trump’s desire, however, to deliver his acceptance speech from the White House is problematic. Critics say doing so would violate ethics laws like the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal employees.

Trump said it would be perfectly legal because the Hatch Act “doesn’t pertain to the president.”

“The rule prohibiting political activity on government property still applies, regardless of the Hatch Act’s exception for the president,” Kedric Payne, ethics director at the Campaign Legal Center, told the Associated Press. “Any federal employee who helps facilitate the acceptance speech risks violating the Hatch Act.”

When it comes to Gettysburg, Lincoln’s speech was aimed at healing a nation torn by Civil War.

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” Lincoln said on Nov. 19, 1863, as he dedicated a portion of the battlefield as a national cemetery.

Trump likes to compare himself to Lincoln, describing himself as a "wartime" president and saying he has done more for Black Americans than any president since Lincoln.

Unlike Lincoln, Trump’s campaign and presidency have been dedicated to magnifying divisions among Americans, pitting whites against minorities and immigrants, rich against poor and, in his latest gambit, seniors against younger workers.

Trump often has expressed at least tacit support for white supremacists, the 2017 tax cuts delivered the greatest benefits to the wealthy and his plans to eliminate the Social Security and Medicare payroll tax deductions will threaten the viability of both programs.

Trump and his GOP followers are stoking racial divisions, seeking to redefine the Black Lives Matter movement as Marxist and anti-family, Politico reported.