President Trump held his first rally in months in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night, one day after the Juneteenth holiday, the day on which the event had initially be scheduled. The rally marked Trump’s first major step toward reviving his reelection campaign since the coronavirus pandemic surfaced in the United States in early March.
The coronavirus has since killed more than 119,000 Americans. Combined with protests nationwide over police brutality and systemic racism, the rally was met with concerns that the virus could spread further – attendees were not required to wear masks – and that violence could erupt.
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Here are some key moments from Trump’s approximately two-hour speech.
Trump said he advised officials to “slow” COVID-19 testing to lower case numbers
During the rally, Trump claimed that the United States has tested more than 25 million people for the coronavirus.
“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said. “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’”
The president then proceeded to mock the seriousness of the virus, making up an example of a case that would supposedly be counted.
“The young man’s 10-years-old. He’s got the sniffles,” Trump said. “He’ll recover in 15 minutes. That’s a case. Add him to it.”
As states have begun to reopen their economies – some earlier than others, and under different circumstances – the Sunbelt has seen infections and hospitalization rates rise in recent weeks. The surge threatens to undermine the progress of states like Massachusetts, where the number of coronavirus cases and deaths has gradually decreased over time.
Data available on coronavirus cases also appear to highlight the disproportionate effects of the virus on Black and brown communities. In Massachusetts, data released Friday by the Baker administration reveal the stark racial divide.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Globe last week that “we’re still in the first wave” of the pandemic. He dismissed Trump’s claim that an increase in testing was the sole reason behind the uptick in cases – and hospitalization rates.
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“When you look at the number of hospitalizations, and you see some of the states say, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m having more hospitalizations than I had before,’ that cannot be due to increase in testing,” Fauci said. “That has to be due to increase in real cases.”
Trump also resurfaced his earlier labeling of COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu,” terms widely viewed as racist monikers, and which he has previously received harsh criticism for using.
The virus has infected over 2 million Americans, and has claimed the lives of more than 119,000 of the nation’s citizens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump spoke at length about his health and West Point – and then reenacted scenes
President Trump spoke for an extended period of time during the rally about his struggle to walk down a ramp at the graduation last weekend at the US Military Academy at West Point. The video of his unsteady descent was circulated across media, prompting speculation that he may have undisclosed health issues.
At one point, to the cheering of the crowd, Trump reenacted his walk down the ramp, taking steps by the inch.
He said his slow descent could be attributed to the “leather bottom shoes” he was wearing at the time.
“This was a steel ramp, you all saw it because everybody saw it. This was a steel ramp. It had no handrail, it was like an ice skating rink,” Trump said. “I said, ‘General, there’s no way I can make it down that ramp without falling on my ass, General. I have no railing.’”
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Trump also expressed frustration that many were questioning the status of his health – and if he was suffering from any illnesses that he had not disclosed to the public.
“They say there is something wrong with our president. I’ll let you know if there’s something wrong, OK?” Trump said.
In addition to discussing his walk down the ramp, Trump also took issue with people who had pointed out his apparent struggle to lift a glass of water to his mouth during the graduation. Like his imitation of the walk, he then proceeded to drink water out of a glass in front of the crowd.
Trump called Black Lives Matter protesters “rioters” and “left wing radicals”
Following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white officer pinned his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25, protests have ensued throughout the nation.
Supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement are calling for an end to police brutality and systemic racism. Trump did not mention Floyd, nor did he acknowledge Juneteenth or the Tulsa 1921 Race Massacre during the rally.
The president did, however, refer to protesters as “left wing radicals” who “burn[ed] down buildings, loot[ed] businesses, destroy[ed] private property, [and] injure[d] hundreds of dedicated police officers.”
Rallies throughout the country, including in the Boston-area, have been largely peaceful.
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“These police officers, they get injured, they don’t complain,” Trump said. “They’re incredible.”
Trump criticized the removal of Confederate monuments
As the nation reckons with its past, the call to remove statues of figures whose history links them to slavery and genocide – such as Christopher Columbus in Boston’s North End – has been revived.
Supporters of taking down the statues – some of the most controversial are monuments to Confederate leaders during the Civil War – say the statues are a symbol of white supremacy and a painful reminder of the treatment of Black and minority groups throughout history.
The Christopher Columbus statue “is representative of the state violence endured by Black and indigenous peoples for over 500 years,” said Jean-Luc Pierite, president of the board of the North American Indian Center of Boston, after the statue was vandalized in mid-June.
President Trump rebuffed the efforts of activists to take down the monuments, calling the movement a “cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion [that] violates everything we hold dear as Americans.”
“The unhinged left wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments,” Trump said. “We’re not conforming, that’s why we’re here.”
Trump ranted about former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee
In recent weeks, a series of polls has shown Trump trailing Biden.
During the rally, Trump seemed to lash out at the recent numbers, calling Biden a “helpless puppet of the radical left.” The president claimed while Biden was “never a radical left” himself, “he’s controlled by the radical left.”
“His campaign staff even donated a lot of money to bail out,” protesters in Minneapolis, Trump said, who the president labeled as “rioters, looters and arsonists.”
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June 21, 2020 at 08:38PM
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Here are key moments from Trump’s rally in Tulsa - The Boston Globe
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