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Trump Campaign Brushes Off Low Turnout at President's Rally

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign on Sunday brushed
   off the underwhelming size of the crowd at his first political rally in
   three months, blaming "fake news media" reports of the threat of
   coronavirus infections and the possibility of protests for keeping
   people away.

   The 19,000-seat BOK Center arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma, appeared to be a
   bit more than half full Saturday night, even though the president's
   campaign last week boasted that a million people had registered to
   attend. The Trump campaign said about 12,000 people passed through
   metal detectors at the entrances.

   An outdoor rally for an overflow crowd was called off because few were
   there, while the arena's upper gallery was largely empty.

   For the cheering supporters who did show up, Trump gave them what they
   came to hear: nearly two hours of red-meat political taunts.

   He railed against his Democratic opponent in the November national
   election, former Vice President Joe Biden, attacked "radical left"
   protesters demonstrating in recent weeks against police abuses in the
   U.S., and blamed China for the spread of what he called the "kung flu,"
   his derisive term for the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly
   120,000 people in the U.S. and infected more than 2.2 million.

   Trump called his sign-waving supporters "warriors" and declared that
   "the silent majority is stronger than ever before." He boasted about
   his conservative judicial appointees, low taxes, the booming stock
   market, the wall under construction on the southern border with Mexico
   to keep out undocumented immigrants and adding to the U.S. military
   budget.

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