Trevor Noah on Trump's Tulsa rally: 'Foiled by a bunch of meddling kids'
Trevor Noah
After a couple weeks of hype and plenty of controversy, Donald Trump held his first campaign rally since the pandemic in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday, and by all accounts, it was a “flop”, said Trevor Noah on Monday’s Daily Show. Though the campaign bragged about a million requested tickets and promised to fill the 19,000-seat BOK Center, only about 6,200 people showed up; an outdoor stage for a second appearance by the president and Mike Pence was unceremoniously dismantled after the expected crowd never materialized.
“Poor Trump,” said Noah. “For somebody who was born into wealth and never suffered a single consequence for his actions, this dude just cannot catch a break. Because nothing is more humiliating than when you throw a party and most of the guests don’t show up.”
The Trump administration claimed the low turnout was due to protesters blocking the arena entrance, “which, like most things the Trump campaign says, is not true,” Noah said. The most likely explanation for the low turnout is that “as much as some people love Trump, they also love not dying from coronavirus”.
That, and some superior trolling by K-pop stans and TikTok users who mobilized online to register for free rally tickets they had no intention of ever using. The fact that Trump was “foiled by a bunch a meddling kids” is “hilarious”, said Noah. “That means Trump is basically a Scooby-Doo villain now. But at least Scooby-Doo villains wear masks.
“And I’m proud of these teens,” he added. “I mean, think about it: in 2020, TikTok went from being an app where you learn dances to ‘hey guys, this is how you abolish the police and take down the president’.”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert also discussed Trump’s “bust” of a rally dominated by images of empty seats. The Trump campaign was so confident of the rally’s attendance, Colbert recapped, that it even built an outdoor overflow stage with the anticipation of 40,000 fans. Only 25 people showed up before the venue was quickly scrapped. “That’s not a presidential rally, that’s the private party room at the Olive Garden,” said Colbert. “Doesn’t say great things when there are fewer people in your crowd than have credibly accused you of sexual assault.”
Things did not fare better inside, either, where the crowd was less than one-third capacity of the 19,000-seat arena. “Now, I don’t want to be a glass-half-empty kind of guy, but half empty would be a huge improvement,” said Colbert.
As for the speech itself, Trump spent an inordinate amount of attention on criticism he received for his commencement address at West Point, in which he appeared to gingerly stumble down a ramp. “Trump talked about Rampgate for a whopping 10 minutes and 23 seconds, which is almost as long as it took him to get down that ramp,” Colbert said. “That’s how low the bar is for Trump these days. He gets applause for sipping water. It reminds me of Eisenhower’s re-election slogan: ‘I like Ike because he can use the big boy potty.’”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers took a closer look at what went awry with Trump’s rally, which the campaign touted as a “blowout” in the days ahead.
“Trump staked his political fortunes and his ego on this rally, and it was such a flop he even had to cancel a planned second speech to what they thought would be an overflow crowd outside before Trump had landed,” Meyers recapped. “Crews were literally breaking down the stage because so few people were there.”
In other words, though he may be president of the US, “they’re treating him like the least popular band at Coachella”.
Trump’s performance was “just as lackluster as his attendance”, Meyers continued. “You’d think, at a moment like this, the president might want to offer soothing words about the state of the nation and the various crises we face. Instead, Trump spent one of every eight minutes in Tulsa complaining about coverage of his West Point speech.” Specifically, mockery of the way Trump “tiptoed down a ramp like a toddler on ice skates”, said Meyers, and how he drank a glass of water with two hands. In Tulsa, Trump attempted to explain the awkward glass-clutching as a strategy to avoid splashing water on his tie, then turned taking a sip of water into a crescendo moment to cheers from the under-capacity crowd.
“Seriously, has a president’s base ever set a lower bar?” said Meyers of the water-sipping cheers. “‘Woo! That arm works! That arm works!’ The crowd cheered the president drinking water with one hand the way Nasa cheered when they landed a rover on Mars.”