Biden campaign cancels Texas event after Trump supporters surround bus on interstate
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — President Donald Trump on Saturday night appeared to embrace the actions of supporters in Texas who surrounded a Joe Biden campaign bus in what a Biden campaign official described as an attempt to slow down the bus and run it off the road.
Trump tweeted a video of the caravan surrounding the Biden bus with the caption, “I LOVE TEXAS!”
Biden spokesman Bill Russo responded to Trump’s tweet by pointing to reports that Trump’s campaign was not prepared to shuttle attendees who had been bused to a rally at a Pennsylvania airport back afterward, leading to a chaotic situation with Trump’s supporters walking across roads to cars parked miles away.
“For the second time in a week your campaign has left your supporters stranded in the cold with no transportation at one of your superspreader rallies,” Russo said on Twitter. “Maybe you should spend more time worried about those buses than ours.”
The episode was an ugly closing note to the 2020 presidential campaign, which in Texas has seen record-breaking early vote totals that already exceed the number of total votes cast there in the 2016 election.
The Biden campaign bus was traveling Friday from San Antonio to Austin as part of a push to urge Biden supporters to cast their ballots on the state’s last day of early voting.
According to a source familiar with the incident, the vehicles were a “Trump Train group.” These groups are known in parts of the state and organize events that involve their cars with flags and Trump paraphernalia and drive around to show support for President Donald Trump. The group began yelling profanities and obscenities and then blockaded the entire Biden entourage.
At one point they slowed the tour bus to roughly 20 mph on Interstate 35, the campaign official said. The vehicles slowed down to try to stop the bus in the middle of the highway. The source said there were nearly 100 vehicles around the campaign bus. Biden staffers were rattled by the event, the source said, though no one was hurt.
Staffers on the bus called 911, which eventually led to local law enforcement assisting the bus to its destination.
Neither Biden nor his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, were on the bus. Multiple sources tell CNN that Wendy Davis, a former state senator who is challenging Republican Rep. Chip Roy for Texas’ 21st Congressional District, was on the bus. Davis’ campaign declined to comment.
The Biden campaign, out of what was described as an abundance of caution, ended up canceling an event scheduled for later that day in Austin, the aide said.
“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas today instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way,” Biden campaign Texas communications director Tariq Thowfeek told CNN.
“Our supporters will continue to organize their communities for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot, and to the Texans who disrupted our events today: We’ll see you on November 3rd,” Thowfeek said.
CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
