People wait in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, to enter President Donald Trump's campaign rally. Photo / AP
People wait in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, to enter President Donald Trump's campaign rally. Photo / AP
Supporters of President Donald Trump were filling streets Saturday around the Tulsa stadium where the president will hold his first rally in months, ready to welcome him back to the campaign trail despite warnings from health officials about the coronavirus and six of his staffers reportedly testing positive.
The six staff members were helping set up for the rally.
Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, said the six staffers were a small fraction of the hundreds of tested performed and "quarantine procedures were immediately implemented".
"No Covid-positive staffers or anyone in immediate contact will be at today's rally or near attendees or elected officials," Murtaugh said in a statement. "As previously announced, all rally attendees are given temperature checks before going through security, at which point they are given wristbands, facemasks and hand sanitizer."
The crowd outside the Tulsa stadium — most without masks and dressed in Trump hats and T-shirts — were hoping to be among the first inside the more than 19,000-seat BOK Centre for what is expected to be the biggest indoor event the country has seen since restrictions to prevent the Covid-19 virus began in March. Trump also will speak at an outdoor event to be held inside a perimeter of tall metal barriers that were put up around the BOK Centre. Some of the attendees have been camped near the venue since early in the week.
Protests also are planned, and some Black leaders in Tulsa have said they're worried the visit could lead to violence. It's happening amid protests over racial injustice and policing across the US and in a city that has a long history of racial tension. Officials said they expected some 100,000 people in Tulsa's downtown.
Most people in the crowd are not wearing masks. Photo / AP
Renee Lamoreaux, a retiree and Trump supporter from Tulsa, said Friday that police officers had briefed ralliers, saying the event would basically be in a "big cage," and the rest of the world would be outside. She said she felt reassured.
Tulsa has seen cases of Covid-19 spike in the past week, and the local health department director asked that the rally be postponed. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said it would be safe. The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday denied a request that everyone attending the indoor rally wear a mask, and few in the crowd outside Saturday were wearing them.
The Trump campaign said it will hand out masks and hand sanitizer, but there is no requirement that participants use them. Participants will also undergo a temperature check.
President Donald Trump's campaign says six staff members helping set up for his Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have tested positive for coronavirus. Photo / AP
The rally originally was planned for Friday, but was moved after complaints that it coincided with Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the US, and in a city that was the cite of a 1921 race-related massacre, when a white mob attacked Blacks, leaving as many as 300 people dead.
Stitt said he will join Vice President Mike Pence for a meeting Saturday with Black leaders from Tulsa's Greenwood District, the area where the 1921 attack occurred. Stitt initially invited Trump to tour the area, but said, "We talked to the African American community and they said it would not be a good idea, so we asked the president not to do that."
