Trump returns to campaign trail with warning over ‘radicals’
● Protesters and ‘fake media’ blamed for low turnout at rally
US President Donald Trump launched his comeback rally by defining the upcoming election as a stark choice between national heritage and leftwing radicalism.
Mr Trump ignored health warnings to hold his first rally in 110 days, one of the largest indoor gatherings in the world during a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 120,000 Americans.
The rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was meant to restart his reelection effort less than five months before the president faces voters again.
“The choice in 2020 is very simple,” he said.
“Do you want to bow before the left-wing mob, or do you want to stand up tall and proud as Americans?” Mr Trump unleashed months of pent-up grievances about the coronavirus, which he dubbed the “Kung flu”, a racist term for Covid-19, which originated in China.
He also tried to defend his handling of the pandemic, even as cases continue to surge in many states.
He complained that robust coronavirus testing was making his record look bad - and suggested the testing effort should slow down.
“Here’s the bad part. When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more cases,” he said.
“So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.”
Mr Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden tweeted later: “Speed up the testing.”
In the hours before the rally, crowds were significantly lighter than expected, and campaign officials scrapped plans for Mr Trump to address an overflow space outdoors.
When Mr Trump declared that “the silent majority is stronger than ever before,” about a third of the seats at his indoor rally were empty.
Images from the rally, which was moved back a day from its original 19 June date, showed swathes of empty spaces at the BOK Center, which seats 19,000 people.
The empty seats were blamed on “radical protesters” and “apocalyptic media coverage” by Brad Parscale, Mr Trump’s campaign director.
And the president blamed the media for scaring people and by insisting there were protesters outside who were “doing bad things”.
But the small crowds of prerally demonstrators were largely peaceful, and Tulsa police reported just one arrest on Saturday afternoon.
Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-cortez suggested the low numbers were in fact down to a campaign on video-sharing app Tiktok.
She tweeted: “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on Tiktok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID.
“Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud.”
In his speech Mr Trump focused on cultural issues, including the push to tear down statues and rename military bases honouring Confederate generals following nationwide protests about racial injustice.
“The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalise our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments,” he said.
“They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new repressive regime in its place.”
Mr Trump also floated the idea of a one-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of burning an American flag, an act of protest protected by the First Amendment.
After a three-month break from rallies, Mr Trump spent the evening reviving his greatest hits, including boasts about the pre-pandemic economy and complaints about the media. But his scattershot remarks made no mention of some of the current flashpoints, including the killing of George Floyd.