TULSA, Okla. — President Donald Trump drew lower-than-expected turnout at his first rally in months on Saturday in Tulsa amid a tense political backdrop, nationwide anti-racism protests, and warnings from health officials about the coronavirus.
Trump began the rally, his first since early March, by thanking the crowd of supporters indoors for coming, despite efforts from “some very bad people outside,” alluding to the campaign’s unfounded claim that protesters were responsible for the many empty seats inside Tulsa’s 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma Center by blocking rally-goers from entering.
“We begin! We begin! We begin our campaign,” Trump said to applause. “I stand before you today to declare the Silent Majority is stronger than ever before!”
A supporter sits in the stands at a campaign rally for President Donald Trump in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20, 2020.Evan Vucci / AP
Trump’s return to the campaign trail, however, comes as the country has a national reckoning over race in a city where one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history occurred. White residents went on a horrific spree of murder, arson, and looting, known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, in a wealthy Black community in 1921.
The Trump campaign had initially scheduled the campaign for June 19, which is known as Juneteenth —a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S — but postponed it after criticism.
Trump made no mention of the historical tragedy as he gave his typical freewheeling campaign speech, ranging from calling news media fake news to his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump peppered his speech with various criticisms of former Vice President Joe Biden, his presumed Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election, including on race.
“Virtually every policy that has hurt Black Americans for half a century, Joe Biden has supported or enacted,” Trump said. “I have done more for the Black community in four years then Joe Biden has done in 47 years.”
June 21, 202000:53
Hours before the rally kicked off, the campaign said six staff members involved in organizing it had tested positive for coronavirus, including two Secret Service members. The campaign said it will conduct contact tracing and those officials would not attend Saturday’s rally.
At Saturday’s rally, Trump again blamed testing as the reason for spikes in the number of COVID-19 cases despite the fact that both data and public health experts connect the surge to the easing of lockdown restrictions in various states.
“Testing is a double-edged sword,” Trump told the crowd. “Here’s the bad part: when you do testing to that extent, you will find more cases.”
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Trump said he has tried to tell his officials to slow down testing, even as states such as Texas, Nevada, and Florida have seen recent upticks in cases. His campaign issued a statement after the rally saying the president’s remarks were in jest.
However, the campaign refused to cancel or significantly scale down the event despite warnings from health officials and a last-ditch legal challenge about the fear of spreading COVID-19 at one of the largest public gatherings since the outbreak began.
After the rally ended, Trump’s campaign tried to downplay the low turnout by citing the statement on Tulsa rally viewership on social media, calling it “unmatched enthusiasm behind the President’s re-election.”
The president also spent a great deal of time recounting the media and pundit reaction to his now-viral and noticeably cautious walk down a conventional-looking ramp after a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last week.
The president also went after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, a familiar target, for apologizing this month for opposing players kneeling to protest police brutality during the national anthem.
“We will never kneel to our national anthem or our great American flag,” Trump said.
Trump, who has referred to COVID-19 at the “Chinese virus,” at one point referred to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu,” a racist term his White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters in March was “highly offensive” after reports of aides using the term.
Trump boasted days before the event, telling reporters, “We’ve never had an empty seat, and we certainly won’t in Oklahoma.” Trump’s campaign claimed that nearly 1 million people had requested tickets to the event.
Although a large crowd of his supporters – many sporting ‘Make America Great Again’ hats, shirts, and signs – gathered inside the arena, many of whom were not wearings masks, the campaign’s crowd expectations were not met as many seats were empty. An outdoor stage set up for an overflow crowd was dismantled when no overflow occurred.
Supporters cheer for Eric Trump before the start of a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20, 2020.Sue Ogrocki / AP
Some supporters near the podium appeared to be wearing face coverings. Republican lawmakers, many of whom were not wearing face coverings, were also in attendance. Campaign officials said masks were offered, and temperatures of rally-goers and reporters were checked on the way into the arena.
A tense and chaotic scene erupted outside the arena, mostly between Trump supporters and anti-racism protesters, many of whom were peaceful and support the Black Lives Matter movement. Police and members of the Oklahoma National Guard were also on-scene near the arena ahead of the rally to create a buffer zone between protesters and rally-goers.
MSNBC aired live footage of an anti-racism protester, who had a ticket to the rally, being physically moved by police for refusing to move out of a street near the rally. The unnamed woman was wearing an “I can’t breathe” T-shirt memorializing the words heard by George Floyd before his death in police custody. Other protesters had “8:46” signs, the amount of time the Minnesota officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck.
The Trump campaign criticized protesters in a statement.
“President Trump is rallying in Tulsa with thousands of energetic supporters, a stark contrast to the sleepy campaign being run by Joe Biden from his basement in Delaware,” campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said. “Radical protestors, coupled with a relentless onslaught from the media, attempted to frighten off the President’s supporters. We are proud of the thousands who stuck it out.”
Police form a line outside of the BOK Center before a rally hosted by President Donald Trump in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20, 2020.Lauren Egan / NBC News
Trump, who emphasized that the rally he is the “Law and Order” president, Trump criticized the media’s coverage of the protest sparked by Floyd’s death versus his rally related to COVID-19.
“They don’t talk about, when you see 25,000 people walking down Fifth Avenue, or walking down a street of a Democrat-run city, you never hear them saying they are not wearing their masks,” Trump said.
Many protesters around the country, including those demonstrating outside the Tulsa arena, have worn masks.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health reported 331 new COVID-19 cases across the state on Saturday, bringing the total number of the state’s number of cases to more than 10,000. Those attending the rally must sign a waiver protecting the campaign from responsibility. On Friday, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit to delay the rally because of coronavirus fears.
Many states around the country, including Oklahoma, have begun reopening despite the U.S. recently topping more than 2.2 million coronavirus cases as of Saturday, according to an NBC News tally.
Trump was originally slated to speak to overflow crowds outside of Saturday’s rally, but his campaign told NBC News moments before the rally began that the president would not make that appearance. The campaign said in a statement protestors had been interfering with people attending the rally, however, MSNBC reported that was not the case. There were also very few supporters gathered in the overflow area outside the event. Campaign workers were seen dismantling outdoor stages shortly before Trump arrived at the arena.
Vice President Mike Pence, who held a roundtable with Black faith and community leaders in Tulsa several miles away from the rally, also declined to speak to crowds outside.
June 20, 202001:06
Trump’s rally also comes as he faces another political maelstrom in Washington. A judge ruled on Saturday that Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton can publish his tell-book about his time in the White House, which paints a damning portrait of the president.
Trump also faces scrutiny over his firing of Geoffrey Berman, the Manhattan U.S. attorney in New York, who was investigating members of the president’s inner circle. Trump told reporters on Saturday he was “not involved” in the firing, telling reporters before heading to Tulsa, “That’s all up to the attorney general.”
Attorney General William Barr had initially announced Berman was resigning. However, Berman issued a statement contradicting Barr and said he would only leave if the Senate confirms his replacement. Berman left his position after deputy U.S. attorney Audrey Strauss was named acting U.S. attorney.
Susan Kroll reported from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Monica Alba from Washington, and Dartunorro Clark from New York.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
