PREZ PLAYS SHAME GAME
Trump back in campaign swing at Tulsa rally, mocking old foe Joe
President Trump returned triumphant to the rally stage Saturday night, telling a smaller-thanexpected audience in Tulsa, Okla., that they’re putting a basement-cowering, anarchist-coddling Joe Biden to shame.
“Joe Biden is silent in his basement in the face of this assault on the values of this nation,” the president crowed of his presumptive Democratic opponent.
Trump earlier Saturday had mocked the former vice president’s rally last Wednesday, attended by some 20 supporters.
“You are warriors,” the president told the Tulsa attendees, who braved COVID-19 fears and a circling crowd of protesters to not-quite-fill the 19,000-seat BOK Center for nearly two hours.
Trump, who earlier had to cancel a planned speech to the “overflow” crowd when no overflow materialized, blamed the huge swaths of empty seats on the media for purportedly declaring, “Don’t go, don’t come, don’t do anything.”
But social media was abuzz Saturday night with claims that Trump opponents — many of them teens — had made sure hundreds, and maybe thousands, of seats remained empty by bulk-reserving tickets they would never use. The rally was held on a day when Oklahoma reported 331 new coronavirus cases — and as six members of the Trump campaign’s Tulsa advance team tested positive for COVID-19.
“We begin our campaign,” he said as he addressed his first rally in more than three months.
“I stand before you today to declare the silent majority is stronger than ever before.”
Trump spent much of his speech complaining about the protests that have swept the nation since the May 25 police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
He spared no ire on Seattle, where one person was killed and another injured inside a barricaded “cop-free” protesters’ area early Saturday.
“How about Seattle?” he asked, to groans from the crowd.
“Now I may be wrong, but it probably would be better for us to just watch that disaster,” he said. “Let it simmer . . . let people see what radical leftist Democrats will do to our country.
“The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to desecrate our history,” he said, referring to the movement to take down statues of Confederate figures, “and cancel anyone who does not conform to their demands.
“We don’t conform — that’s why we’re here. They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their own cruel and oppressive regime in its place . . . these people are stone-cold crazy!”
He added, “We will defend privacy, free thought, free speech, religious liberty, and the right to keep and bear arms.
“And when you see those lunatics all over the streets, it’s damn nice to have arms.”
The president spent more than 10 minutes riffing on images of himself holding a water glass with two hands and walking gingerly down a long ramp that had trended online after his commencement speech at West Point.
Trump blamed his slippery leather-soled shoes for his slow progress down the ramp — and attendees roared with laughter as he gave an exaggerated demonstration of his ability to drink water single-handedly.