Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace and Trump reelection campaign adviser Mercedes Schlapp butt heads over the size of the crowd that attended President Trump’s rally in Tulsa on Saturday.
Wallace asked Schlapp how the campaign missed the crowd-size estimates for Trump’s rally by a measure of magnitude after predicting that more than 1 million people would attend the rally when fewer than 6,200 showed up, to which Schlapp argued protesters scared Trump supporters away from attending the event.
“When it comes to understanding how the rallies work, it’s a first-come, first-served basis. Basically what the 1 million RSVPs include, it’s an opportunity for us to gather data, to get information, obviously. So the key here that is important is to understand, and I had this with my own personal family who lives far away from Tulsa, that they were concerned. There were factors involved like they were concerned about the protesters who were coming in,” Schlapp said.
“There were protesters who blocked the paths, and so we saw that have an impact in terms of people coming to the rally. But what was amazing, Chris, was the fact that over 5.3 million people watched it on all of our digital media channels. And so the reach was far and wide, and that doesn’t even include the TV numbers. We also did a pre-rally show, and that was over 2 million views. We’re living in a virtual time as well,” she said.
Wallace pushed back, noting Trump has bragged about how he can fill arenas while his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, cannot. Wallace also said Fox News reporters in Tulsa did not witness protesters stopping anyone from attending the rally.
Schlapp said “family orientated” Trump supporters did not want to risk bringing their families to the event because of the protesters. She also repeated Trump’s assertions that Biden would not have gathered a larger crowd.
“We’re showing pictures here, and it shows big, empty areas. Frankly, it makes you guys look silly when you deny the reality of what happened,” Wallace said, later adding, “There are empty seats there. At least a third, if not a half of the rally was empty. The arena was empty. You can’t deny it.”
Schlapp maintained that Trump did not have a problem with getting supporters to turn out, adding, “There’s no enthusiasm for Joe Biden.”
Trump’s rally drew “just shy of 6,200” visitors to the Bank of Oklahoma Center according to a public information officer with the Tulsa Police Department. The standard capacity for the stadium is 19,199.
