President Trump’s reelection campaign got off to a rocky start Saturday, with a rally in Tulsa, Okla., that drew a much smaller crowd than his campaign had planned for.
“We begin, we begin our campaign!” Trump said exuberantly as he took the stage at Bank of Oklahoma Center before a crowd that fell far short of filling the 19,000-seat arena.
Trump quickly blamed the “fake news” for discouraging turnout and said “we had some very bad people outside, they were doing some very bad things,” intimating that his supporters had been prevented from entering the arena.
The president then assured those in attendance that “the silent majority is stronger than ever before.”
Settling into a version of the stump speech that he had delivered many times until he suspended campaigns in March as the coronavirus pandemic swept across America, Trump hit all of his familiar themes: his trade deals with China, rebuilding the military, his appointment of hundreds of conservative judges, and told a long anecdote about how much money he saved on the purchase of a new airplane to replace Air Force One.
Missing from his repertoire was his baiting the camera crews to pan the arena and show the size and enthusiasm of the crowd and thanking the fire marshals for letting him exceed the nominal capacity of the auditorium.
Trump mentioned what he termed “the Chinese virus” nearly 10 minutes into his remarks and gave himself high marks for his response to it, emphasizing the steps he took to shore up the price of oil. “It looked like we were in big trouble, and I got it together,” Trump said, adding that he had called the leaders of Russia and Saudi Arabia and “got our energy back to almost $40 a barrel.”
Trump told his crowd that “I have done a phenomenal job” with the pandemic, pointing to the number of COVID-19 tests administered in the U.S. to date. But he also complained that more testing had revealed more cases of the disease caused by coronavirus.
“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.’ They test and they test,” Trump said.
He then imitated a public health official examining a patient, “If you have the sniffles, it’s a case!”
Turning to the Black Lives Matter protests that have erupted since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Trump derided the demonstrators as “anarchists” and accused the media of hypocrisy for expressing concern over the health risks presented by his rallies but not the protests.
Health experts have warned that the virus spreads most easily in crowded indoor spaces.
On defense after weeks of falling poll numbers and a blizzard of negative media coverage, Trump spent more than 10 minutes attempting to explain why he had trouble descending a ramp following a graduation speech at West Point Military Academy. “It was like an ice skating rink,” Trump said of the ramp, adding that the leather soles of his dress shoes were slippery.
“I can’t fall with the fake news watching,” Trump said he told a general who helped guide him down the ramp.
Trump also addressed scrutiny of his difficulty bringing a bottle of water to his lips during the West Point speech, explaining that he had saluted so many of the cadets that his arm was tired.
“I don’t want to get water on the tie,” Trump added, the recounting of the ramp and the water bottle eating up more than 10 minutes of his speech.
Trump derided stories written that speculated he may suffer from Parkinson’s disease, but then quickly added that Joe Biden, his Democratic rival in the general election, wasn’t healthy or sharp enough for the job.
Source: Yahoo
Related posts:
Chicago Man Who Microwaved and Killed Kittens, Charged with Six Counts of Animal Cruelty
King Charles III Undergoes Prostate Treatment in London Hospital
Fugitive Charged in Wife’s 1991 Murder Returns to U.S. to Face Justice
The Tragic Tale of Kimberly Saenz: The Killer Nurse
TikTok Star Suicide: Eva Evans Found Dead
John Wayne Gacy: Unmasking the Killer Clown