US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign on Sunday rejected claims that the present’s Saturday rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was sabotaged by anti-Trump activists on TikTok and K-Pop music fans who had threatened to purchase large numbers of tickets with no intention of showing up.
“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don't know what they're talking about or how our rallies work,” claimed Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale on CNN on Sunday.
Parscale complained that media outlets “gleefully” wrote about the allegations of attempted sabotage of the Trump rally by TikTok users and K-Pop fans, asserting that media outlets “behaved unprofessionally and were willing dupes to the charade”. Parscale suggested that it would be better if media outlets got their information about Trump's reelection campaign from the Trump campaign public relations office.
“Registering for a rally means you've RSVPed with a cell phone number and we constantly weed out bogus numbers, as we did with tens of thousands at the Tulsa rally, in calculating our possible attendee pool. These phony ticket requests never factor into our thinking,” the campaign manager declared.
kpop stans really ruined trumps rally... i LOVE this song pic.twitter.com/sZXYUO5EtM
— lily⁷ (@lilynotlilly) June 21, 2020
Parscale said that attempts to hack Trump events, which he claimed have occurred in previous rallies, were “foolish”, saying that entry to the BOK Center, where the lightly-attended Saturday rally was held, was “on a first-come-first-served basis” and “prior registration was not required”.
The Trump campaign aide claimed that the main reason that the turnout was so far below campaign estimates - predicted earlier by Trump to be “almost one million” - was a fear of becoming infected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. He also complained that anti-Trump protesters allegedly blocked entrances for the president’s supporters.
A spokesperson for the Tulsa Fire Department noted that the number of scanned tickets logged for the event at the 19,000 capacity BOK Center was “just under 6,200”, cited by Fox News.
“The fact is that a week’s worth of the fake news media warning people away from the rally because of COVID and protesters, coupled with recent images of American cities on fire, had a real impact on people bringing their families and children to the rally,” Parscale asserted.
Saturday’s Tulsa rally was Trump’s first public campaign event since the beginning of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the country.
