President Donald Trump on Friday threatened action against protesters and others who might seek to sabotage his rally this weekend in Tulsa, Okla. — echoing the hard-line rhetoric he has employed in response to mass demonstrations across the country against police brutality and racial injustice.
“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,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “It will be a much different scene!”
Trump, who does not control local law enforcement in Oklahoma, did not elaborate on what protesters and others who gather in opposition to his presence in Tulsa might face.
The president’s social media post comes after Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum issued an executive order Thursday declaring a civil emergency and imposing curfews for parts of downtown to be in effect before and after Trump’s rally Saturday in the city’s 19,000-seat BOK Center and a 40,000-capacity convention center nearby.
In his order, Bynum also revealed that he had “received information from the Tulsa Police Department and other law enforcement agencies that shows that individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other States are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.”
Bynum noted that protests have already “been planned in response to” Trump’s rally, and black community leaders have expressed fears about episodes of violence resulting from the campaign event — which overlaps with a two-day local celebration of Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
Marc Lotter, director of strategic communications for the president’s reelection campaign, defended Trump’s tweet Friday, warning on MSNBC that “if we see what we’ve seen in other cities with rioting, looting, setting buildings on fire and physical violence, then that’s going to be something that would be met by police and it would be handled appropriately.”
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale played down concerns of a confrontation. “I’ve been here since day one, and I found all Trump supporters to be really caring, loving people that care about this country,” he told Fox News.
But Parscale also claimed the campaign was seeing “people coming in that are trying to disrupt” and “trying to create scenes” at Saturday’s rally. The protesters, he argued, “want that moment where CNN or some other fake news media can try to make it look like a Trump supporter is not a loving and caring person.”
Later Friday morning, the president’s focus appeared to shift away from potential conflict as he returned to his frequent fixation on attendance levels at his rallies. “Big crowds and lines already forming in Tulsa. My campaign hasn’t started yet. It starts on Saturday night in Oklahoma!” he tweeted — even though his campaign billed a June 2019 rally in Orlando as its official 2020 kickoff.
Trump has advocated for an aggressive, militaristic response to quash nationwide protests and riots in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by Minneapolis police in May.
Earlier this month, Trump threatened to deploy active-duty troops to put an end to racial unrest, while police officers and National Guard troops violently dispersed largely peaceful protesters in front of the White House to clear the way for a presidential photo opportunity in front of a church.
