Here are some of the takeaways from Trump’s rally:
Trump said he wanted to ‘slow the testing down’
President Donald Trump boasted of his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and again blamed China for spreading the virus.
Coronavirus cases have spiked in several states around the country, including in Oklahoma, the site of the rally. Local health officials had called for the rally to be postponed out of concern about the spread of the virus.
“COVID. To be specific, COVID-19. That name gets further and further away from China, as opposed to calling it the Chinese virus,” he said. “We – I – did a phenomenal job with it.”
Trump said he told his administration, “slow the testing down, please” reiterating his argument that higher test numbers led to higher case counts.
In fact, in many states seeing spikes in cases, the increase in infections is outpacing the number of new tests. As the country reopens, medical experts say that one of the keys to curbing the spread of COVID-19 is widespread testing so that people who have the disease can self-quarantine to avoid infecting others at workplaces, schools and other public places. At the White House, for example, aides are tested daily to prevent an outbreak.
The president also suggested, without evidence, that COVID-19 is being over-reported. Experts, including members of Trump’s own coronavirus task force, have said they believe COVID-19 cases are being under-reported, not over-reported.
Trump imitated a doctor talking about a 10-year-old with “sniffles” who would conclude “that’s a case!”
The president said the governor of New Jersey told him only one person under the age of 18 died, which the president said shows that young people have a “great immune system”
“Let’s open the schools please!” he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the president’s coronaivrus task force, said earlier this week while more testing does result in more cases, the recent surge in some states “cannot be explained by increased testing.”
Smaller crowd in attendance, majority did not wear mask
Trump’s rally to revive his campaign during the coronavirus pandemic boasted a smaller crowd than his usual campaign events, with much of the upper sections of the 19,000-seat BOK Center stadium remaining empty.
Nicholas Wu
✔@nicholaswu12
President Trump has taken the stage.
The three sections immediately behind him are relatively full, but the upper deck is still sparsely populated, with no more than a few rows full per section.
An overcrowd event outside was cancelled and broken down by Secret Service before the president started speaking inside, due to low attendance.
Prior to the event, the Trump campaign had boasted one million tickets were requested, and Trump predicted there would not be an empty seat.
Trump’s campaign blamed the low turnout for the rally, as well as the scratched event, on “radical protesters” as well as members of the media, who they claimed “attempted to frighten off the President’s supporters.”
Journalists on the ground have refuted seeing large numbers of individuals turned away because of rowdy protesters.
Trump, who often kicks off his campaign rallies by crowing about the size of the crowd, was forced to use his high stakes rally to explain why turnout was less than expected.
Echoing a line from his campaign manager, Trump blamed the smaller than expected crowds on media coverage leading up to the event, and blamed protesters for his decision to not deliver expected remarks at the scheduled outdoor overflow event.
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“You are warriors,” Trump told the crowd, suggesting that they had turned out despite the coverage leading up to the rally. “I’ve been watching the fake news for weeks now. And everything is negative. Today it was like, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Additionally, the majority of attenders did not wear masks despite the campaign handing them out. However, they were not enforced. Several U.S. lawmakers in attendance did not wear masks, as well.
‘I did a phenomenal job’
Trump shrugged off the looming threat from the coronavirus, despite several states reporting record-high numbers of cases and hospitalizations in the past few days, including Oklahoma.
Local health officials had called for the rally to be postponed out of concern about the spread of the virus.
More: Oklahoma coronavirus cases surge, hospitalizations rise ahead of Trump’s Tulsa rally
He continued to boast of his administration’s response to the pandemic, and again blamed China for spreading the virus.
“We – I – did a phenomenal job with it,” Trump declared.
Trump said he told his administration, “slow the testing down, please” reiterating his argument that higher test numbers led to higher case counts.
He imitated a doctor talking about a 10-year-old with “sniffles” who would conclude “that’s a case!”
The president said the governor of New Jersey told him only one person under the age of 18 died, which the president said shows that young people have a “great immune system”
“Let’s open the schools please!” he said.
More: Why it’s okay to admit you’re struggling amid coronavirus
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the president’s coronaivrus task force, said earlier this week while more testing does result in more cases, the recent surge in some states “cannot be explained by increased testing.”
Coronavirus slur
The president at one point also called COVID-19 the “kung flu” and the “Chinese virus.”
“It’s a disease without question,” Trump told the audience. “I can name 19 different versions of names. Many call it a virus, which it is. Many call it a flu. What’s the difference?”
Public health officials have discouraged terms that associate a pandemic with a place. Trump frequently used “Chinese virus” in the early weeks of the pandemic but stopped using it as frequently.
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One of his own advisers, Kellyanne Conway, in March called reports of a White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “kung flu” as “highly offensive.”
COVID-19 deaths neared 120,000 Saturday in the U.S.
‘Demolish our heritage’: Trump defends Confederate statues
Trump’s rally, just a day after Juneteenth and located in a city with the site of one of the worst race massacres in US history, defended confederate monuments around the country.
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Trump claimed the left and protesters only desired “to demolish our heritage” as demonstrators have been tearing down confederate statues following weeks of protests over racial injustice.
Protesters continue to target historical symbols of the Confederacy. Late Friday, protesters in Washington, D.C., and in Raleigh, North Carolina, toppled statues.
The protests were sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man whose neck was pinned under the knee of a white police officer for nearly nine minutes in May.
More: After George Floyd, students sick of ‘lip service,’ want action from colleges over racism
Trump barely spoke about race, and did not mention Floyd.
Trump targets Democratic politicians and critics
Trump used his rally to hit back at some of his Democratic critics, including DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.
The president swiped at Bowser for the Black lives Matter demonstrations in Washington, D.C, and Ocasio-Cortez for her environmental views.
Bowser responded, tweeting that there’s “a lot of empty room” in Trump’s head, “just like tonight’s half empty Tulsa arena.”
Muriel Bowser
✔@MurielBowser
I see @AOC and I are living in his head, and apparently there’s a lot of empty room in there… just like tonight’s half empty Tulsa arena.
Trump called Omar a “hate-filled America-bashing socialist” whose goal is to make America “just like the country from which she came, Somalia. No government, no police, no safety, no nothing.”
Omar, a representative from Minnesota, fled Somalia as a refugee and has been a citizen since she was 17. Her father died from COVID-19 a few days ago.
MSN