Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said that supporters with underlying health conditions should not attend President Trump’s “Keep America Great” rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and that all attendees should wear masks.
“We are advising people if you are coming to the rally, if you have comorbidities, don’t come,” Lankford, a Republican, said in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday. “Watch it on TV.”
Lankford also advised wearing a mask, but called this “an individual decision.” He added, “The hard part about it, and I’ve tried to explain this to folks, you enter a large gathering like that, it’s hard to hear sometimes, so there will be times they’ll pull masks on and off. That’s why I encourage people, if you have other health issues, I discourage you from coming to the event.”
The Trump campaign advised all those attending to get a coronavirus test before attending the event on Saturday, June 20, Trump’s first campaign rally since March. More than 1 million tickets have been requested, campaign manager Brad Parscale said this week.
Lankford said Oklahoma’s five-day rise in coronavirus cases was to be expected as the state reopened restaurants and retail, and as demonstrators gathered to protest the death of George Floyd and other black Americans killed in police custody.
Asked if he would be attending the rally, the country’s top infectious disease expert and an adviser to the president during the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Daily Beast that he is in a high-risk category and so, “Of course not.”
About Trump’s rallies, Fauci said that “outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd,” and “crowd is better than big crowd.”
One impediment to an outdoor rally is “the heat that you deal with this time of year,” said Lankford, calling it “oppressive at times and very unpredictable.”
“The president is always welcome to come to Oklahoma, as well as any president is welcome to come to Oklahoma,” Lankford said.
