The White House rejected rumors that President Trump was unhappy with the way his weekend rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, unfolded.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president was in “good spirits” during a Monday morning interview on Fox & Friends.
“The president was not angry at all. The president was quite energized. I was with him after the rally. It was a huge success. His speech got rave reviews. He was in good spirits on Marine One,” she said before defending the pushback by co-host Steve Doocy.
The attendance at Saturday night’s rally was well below expectations, which reportedly rankled the president.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody gets fired over this,” Axios White House reporter Jonathan Swan reported. “This rally was not the rally they had planned, and it’s not the one [Trump] expected.” In an appearance on MSNBC, Swan added that outside advisers are “already speculating about the firing of people over this.”
NBC News reported that Trump was “furious” at the “underwhelming” crowd, citing sources close to the White House.
The Tulsa Fire Department said Sunday that there were approximately 6,200 people in the BOK Center, which is about one-third of the arena’s capacity. That was a far cry from the more than 1 million people Trump and his campaign boasted had signed up to attend. The campaign even canceled events that were planned outside for an overflow crowd that never materialized.
TikTok users and fans of K-pop music groups claimed they pulled a prank on the campaign by making hundreds of thousands of fake requests, but the Trump campaign blamed the coronavirus, the media, and protesters as the driving forces behind the lower-than-expected attendance.
“The fact is that a week’s worth of the fake news media warning people away from the rally because of COVID and protesters, coupled with recent images of American cities on fire, had a real impact on people bringing their families and children to the rally,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement on Sunday.
