BOK Arena TV Wide Angle
Shot
(Seats 19,000; only 6,200
showed)
Where is my campaign event
staff hiding
(You're
fired)
Major Update — The Original Story Follows:
Trump: “I don't kid or joke” (remarks June 23)
(No sh*t Sherlock - we
already knew that)
Mayor Update on Trump’s Tulsa
Rally Statement: “Stopping or Slowing or Doing Less Virus Testing” – remarks below
from Dr. Fauci during his House testimony on the pandemic with this headline
(sure to send Trump into another rage):
Breaking
with Trump, Fauci says U.S. going to do
“more testing, not less”
WASHINGTON (NBC News) — Dr. Anthony Fauci said
Tuesday that the federal government is trying to expand testing, not slow it
down it as President Donald Trump has suggested in recent days.
In testimony before the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, Fauci was asked about the president's recent
comments and whether he agrees that it makes sense to limit the number of
COVID-19 tests, saying in part: “None of us have ever been told to slow down on
testing — that just is a fact. It's the opposite. We're going to be doing more
testing, not less.”
Fauci is the
nation’s top infectious diseases expect, who played a key role in the Trump
administration's response to the pandemic. Fauci's comments come in
stark contrast to those by Trump in Tulsa (June 20) when he told the crowd of
his supporters at his first campaign rally in months that he wanted to slow
down testing for the coronavirus.
Trump precisely said: “Testing is a
double-edged sword, (while later adding that the U.S. has conducted 25 million
tests), concluding: “When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find
more people, you're going to find more cases, so I said to my people, 'Slow the
testing down, please.'"
My Notes: Press Secretary McEnany for one later said: “The president was just
kidding about reduced testing.” Memo for McEnany – get up to date airhead: Your boss here
from Politico (June 23) told the press precisely: “I
don’t kid. Let me just tell you. Let me make it clear.”
That statement from Trump of course shatters the defenses of senior White House aides who
argued Trump’s remarks were made in jest and rips McEnany’s BS public statement
to shreds.
Fauci also added that the coronavirus threat right now is a “mixed bag”
because the U.S. has been hit badly with more than 120,000 deaths and 2.5
million infections.
Naturally, I conclude: Trump does not and will not agree with that
since he seldom mentions the deaths except in very passing moments – reserving most
of time to brag about himself.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:
From the Washington Post (in part below):
Tulsa Rally Crowd a Flop – Trump Anger Shows
Impact: The Trump campaign has
now sought to blame protesters for the lower-than-expected turnout at the
president’s rally in Tulsa.
Note: Reporters on site also saw little evidence of attendees being blocked
from going to the event.
Trump’s reelection campaign
repeatedly touted figures suggesting that as many as 1 million people had
signed up to attend. But the crowd did not fill the 19,000-seat BOK Center,
with swaths of upper-level seating empty (TV photo above).
The spin game:
Mercedes Schlapp, Trump
campaign adviser on Fox said the turnout was lower than
expected because Trump supporters were afraid of protests outside the venue
turning violent saying: “People were concerned about the demonstrations and so we
saw that have an impact on the number of attendees.”
Schlapp was pressed by FOX host
Chris Wallace on the fact that the Trump campaign itself had raised
expectations about high attendance numbers, Schlapp replied: “There were people
and families who didn’t bring their children because of concerns about the
protesters.”
Fact: Outside the rally venue,
one group of protesters blocked one of three entrances for about 15 minutes —
but by that point, most people had already entered the arena’s outer perimeter.
By the time Trump took stage, there had been tense verbal confrontations outside but no reports of
violence. There were civilians carrying
military-style rifles and pistols who wandered amid the crowds claiming they
wanted to keep people safe. All the while Tulsa police
and National Guard troops restrained and separated opposing sides with nothing
major happening.
Trump’s reaction before and after the rally: NBC reports that Trump was “furious
at the underwhelming crowd at the rally” – a major a major disappointment. The rally had been hyped as a
raucous return to the campaign trail after a three-month hiatus due to the
coronavirus pandemic (according to multiple people close to the White House).
Trump was fuming at his top political aides on Saturday even
before the rally began, after his campaign revealed that six members of the advance team on the ground in Tulsa
had tested positive for COVID-19, including Secret Service personnel.
Trump then asked those around
him why that information was exposed and expressed annoyance that the coverage
ahead of his mega-rally was dominated by that revelation.
The Bottom Line: The Trump
re-election effort boasted it would fill the BOK Center that seats more than
19,000 people, but only 6,200 filled the general
admission sections of the enclosed arena (the Tulsa fire marshal told NBC News).
My 2 cents: Good coverage and of course the blame game is Trump’s #1
fallback position right on schedule: e.g., always blame a person, the event, facts,
protestors, fake media, hoax this or that, more or less testing hurting numbers,
never inform the public, just take my word for it is his tune).
By far, the worst president in American history – brag about that Mr.
Trump.
Thanks for stopping by.
No comments:
Post a Comment