Temperatures in Las Vegas reached 111 degrees on Thursday and the city remained under an excessive heat warning as of Saturday. The heat is expected to slightly ease up on Sunday, but temperatures in Las Vegas are expected to still climb to 104 degrees, according to forecasts. Early-June high temperatures are typically in the upper 90s.
The campaign’s preparation in Las Vegas follows Trump’s remarks at an event in Phoenix on Thursday — the same day the city reached 110 degrees for the first time in 2024. Prospective attendees at the Arizona event waited outside for hours to enter a town hall organized by Turning Point Action and held at a megachurch. Local fire officials have said that 11 people were taken to the hospital due to heat exhaustion.
In preparation for Sunday’s rally, the Trump campaign announced that it will be giving water bottles to attendees waiting in line, setting up misting and cooling stations, ensuring “ample medical staff will be present” and providing “limited tent space with shade and air conditioning” that would be available “on a first come first served basis.”
While security at these types of events can sometimes ban liquids or umbrellas, the campaign said plastic water bottles and small umbrellas would be permitted. The campaign also encouraged attendees to check the weather and wear suitable clothing in anticipation of the heat.
The ongoing heat wave spanning Texas to California is a direct result of a high-pressure heat dome that has scorched Mexico for weeks — resulting in the country’s hottest and driest May on record. It has now expanded north and west into portions of the United States. Such heat domes suppress clouds and compress the air beneath them, causing the air to warm.
For the second day in a row, Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index for Friday reached a Level 5 across much of the Southwestern United States. That is the index’s highest level, indicating that human-caused climate change has made such heat five times as likely.
Trump, however, has largely dismissed the impact of climate change, rolling back more than 125 environmental safeguards during his time in office, calling global warming “a great hoax” and mocking the concept of sea levels rising. Earlier this week in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Trump again dismissed the impact of climate change.
“The only global warming that matters to me is nuclear global warming,” he told Hannity, going on to dismiss President Biden’s frequent assertion that climate change is an “existential threat.”
The effects of extreme heat on the human body can be deadly. Last year, there were more than 600 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, Ariz., where Phoenix is located.
Dan Stillman contributed to this report.
