Hot words but no violence in Oklahoma
Smaller-than-expected crowd greets Trump at controversial rally held despite health warnings
TULSA, Okla. — President Donald Trump took the stage Saturday night for his first political rally since the coronavirus outbreak, facing a sea of empty seats and an underwhelming crowd as the overflow outdoor area went unused and protesters gathered on downtown streets to denounce the president’s handling of the policing and public health crises roiling the country.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly touted figures suggesting as many as one million people signed up for the event. But the number of Trump supporters who showed up fell far short of that. The crowd did not even fill the 19,000-seat BOK Center venue, with swaths of upper-level seating empty.
The outdoor overflow area remained largely empty, and both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cancelled plans for speeches there as a result.
Trump blamed the news media and protesters for the turnout. “I’ve been watching the fake news for weeks now, and everything is negative — don’t go, don’t come, don’t do anything,” he said during his speech.
Reporters on site saw little evidence of attendees being blocked from going to the rally. One group of protesters blocked one of three entrances into the arena for about 15 minutes, but it was after most people had already entered the arena’s outer perimeter.
In the hours before and after the rally, there was rage and bitterness on display in the streets of Tulsa.
As the sun set, downtown Tulsa was largely closed for business, with blocks of shuttered restaurants, bars and storefronts, many boarded up. Large crowds of protesters marched around the arena as Trump spoke inside, monitored by police.
The tense scene was largely of Trump’s own making. The president insisted on forging ahead with his indoor rally despite health authorities’ stark warnings about the risks of crowding thousands of people into an arena as novel coronavirus cases spike in the city. Trump brushed aside criticism about inflaming racial wounds by choosing to hold his rally just blocks from the site of a century-old racial massacre and one day removed from an annual holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people.
The result was a day of finger-pointing and bullhorn-taunting, face-to-face screaming matches and boiling tempers under the sweltering Tulsa sun. Hundreds of supporters and critics filled downtown in anticipation of the president’s first political rally since the pandemic brought much of public life to a standstill in March.
By the time Trump took the stage Saturday evening, there had been a series of tense verbal confrontations outside but no reports of violence.
So-called militia — civilians carrying military-style rifles and pistols — wandered amid the crowds, claiming they wanted to keep people safe, while Tulsa police and National Guard troops restrained and separated opposing sides.
Fears the rally could accelerate the spread of the virus were underscored when six members of Trump’s campaign advance team tested positive. The campaign made that announcement, saying quarantine procedures had gone into effect for the infected staff members and those in “immediate contact” with them.
Upon entering the rally grounds, attendees were handed blue face coverings and directed through a maze of metal fencing, which led to a touchless temperature screening conducted by volunteers in purple smocks.
The elaborate procedure stood in contrast to the chaotic scenes unfolding downtown. Arguments erupted between protesters and the president’s supporters at street corners near the arena, where they traded cries of “Black lives matter!” and “All lives matter!”
David Morledge, 36, of Fayetteville, Ark., held a sign reading, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” and challenged an officer who ordered him to move to the sidewalk to arrest him. The officer moved on.
Trump’s campaign, which was leasing the BOK Center, directed Tulsa police officers to remove Sheila Buck, a Catholic school art teacher who said she had a ticket to the event and had sat down in protest within the barricaded zone. She was wearing a shirt that read “I can’t breathe,” among the final words uttered by George Floyd as a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck.
Buck spent about six hours in jail and said she was handcuffed the entire time.
The president arrived in Tulsa at a precarious moment for his presidency. Recent polls show him trailing former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, nationally and in some critical swing states, suggesting he has suffered politically from his handling of the virus — which has killed nearly 120,000 Americans — and his response to roiling demonstrations over racial injustice and police brutality sparked by the Floyd killing last month.
The protests and the pandemic collided with Trump’s visit to Tulsa, where the number of new coronavirus cases continues to grow. The county reported 136 new cases Saturday — marking another high for both single-day and average cases — while the state as a whole reported 331 new infections.
Most police officers, National Guard soldiers, food vendors and the vast majority of people in line chose not to wear face coverings, though Trump-branded masks dotted the crowd.
The Confederate flag also appeared, all the more striking because Oklahoma was not a state at the time of the Civil War.