June 20, 2020
Donald Trump holds his first big rally since March, aiming to restart his lagging campaign with a supercharged crowd. It does not go as planned. A memorable debacle on several levels, it will mark the lowest point of his 2020 campaign.
The indoor rally is held in deep red Tulsa, Oklahoma, where health restrictions on gatherings were lax.
Former GOP candidate Herman Cain, an advocate of mask “freedom,” is among many who catches the virus at the superspreader event. He dies a month later.
Before the rally, Trump and his campaign had crowed with increasing excitement about the vast interest in tickets - one million people, they said, had signed up to attend the 19,000 seat venue. They don't seem to realize that K-pop fans on TikTok had requested thousands of tickets as a prank.
On the flight to Tulsa, Trump fumes over TV images of vacant seats and breaking news that six members of his advance team in Tulsa have tested positive for Covid-19. Only 6,200 people show up for the rally, according to the Tulsa fire department.
For nearly two hours, Trump rambles, at one point describing covid as “Kung Flu." He spends 14 minutes explaining why he walked gingerly down a ramp at West Point. He says he told officials to "slow the testing down" to make it seem that cases were decreasing. The White House says he was joking.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tries to blame Black Lives Matter protesters for the embarrassing turnout, claiming they blocked access to the metal detectors. Reporters say a small effort to block one door was quickly quashed. Parscale’s days on the campaign are now severely numbered.
