With tens of thousands of adoring supporters standing shoulder to shoulder before him, President Donald Trump hopes to inject new energy into his 2020 campaign on Saturday as a global pandemic, economic devastation and nationwide protests upend his reelection prospects.
Thousands of Trump fans have been gathering for days in lines outside the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla., for what the Trump campaign hopes to be an overwhelming show of force after the 2020 campaign trail effectively shut down for three months due to the spread of coronavirus across the nation.
It’s a scene soaked in controversy. The nation’s largest indoor gathering in three months is rebuffing the Trump administration’s own warnings about public events. Few rallygoers appeared to be wearing face masks as they stood in line — though each was set to be handed one before entering the 20,000-person arena.
And the rally comes amid nationwide protests — including in Tulsa — over systemic racism. The event was initially announced to take place on Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States, before the campaign moved the date last week after mounting criticism. The rally will be about a mile from the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre – one of the worst racist attacks in American history in which white mobs burned the black community of Greenwood, known as “Black Wall Street” on June, 1, 1921.
Marq Lewis, a Tulsa resident and community activist with We the People Oklahoma called the visit purposefully inflammatory. “We’re already tender and emotions are high. People feel like they can’t really celebrate their Juneteenth the way they want to celebrate it without the backdrop and the shadow of Donald Trump.”
The president will be met by hundreds of people protesting for racial justice — a prospect that appeared high on his mind in recent days.
“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene,” Trump tweeted Friday, renewing concerns about his mixing of peaceful anti-racism protesters with people engaged in looting.
The president has been eager for months to put the coronavirus crisis behind him, and Saturday’s event will mark the first big test of his belief that America is ready to fully reopen without social distancing or even masks — and despite surging infection rates in Arizona, Florida and other large states.
If he’s right, it’s a chance for Trump to campaign the way he wants to for the next four months: revving up raucous crowds around the nation, getting off the defensive and resetting the terms of the 2020 race while his opponent, former vice president Joe Biden, takes a more cautious approach.
It’s a theory that has put him sharply at odds with health experts in Oklahoma and across the nation.
Local health officials, while trying to sidestep the politics of the rally, continue to remind Oklahoma residents and other rallygoers of the dangers of large-scale events during the Covid-19 pandemic. “As outlined by the CDC, individuals looking to attend any large-scale gathering will face an increased risk of becoming infected with Covid-19 and becoming a transmitter of this novel virus,” a spokesman for the Oklahoma State Department of Health said in a statement.
“I think it’s an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic,” Tulsa Health Department Director Brad Dart told the Tulsa World. “I’m concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I’m also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well.”
The rally comes as Oklahoma sees a spike in Covid-19 cases, with 352 new cases in the state on Friday alone — the second-largest one-day jump during the crisis.
The Trump campaign has sent mixed messages about whether the rally would be safe for attendees. The president has told reporters “everybody is going to be safe” while the registration for tickets came with an acknowledgement “any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19,” and that they couldn’t hold the campaign or the center liable.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said masks are “recommended but not required.” The campaign planned to give every attendee a mask, hand sanitizer and a temperature check.
The president and his allies see the event as an opportunity to get back on the offensive after a politically brutal spring. National and swing-state polling shows Trump trailing Biden, along with mounting criticism of his handling of both the Covid-19 pandemic and the protests against police brutality sweeping the nation.
With crowds cheering him on, Trump will have the stage to himself to hit back at everyone who has criticized him over the past three months — unfiltered, with no interruptions or shouted questions from reporters.
Though his campaign formally kicked off in Florida last June, the president tweeted Friday: “My campaign hasn’t started yet. It starts on Saturday night in Oklahoma!”
