Six members of the advance team preparing to staff President Trump’s rally in Tulsa Saturday tested positive for the coronavirus, underscoring concerns about holding a massive indoor event in a city where cases are spiking.
The campaign made that announcement, saying quarantine procedures had gone into effect for the infected staff members and those in “immediate contact” with them, as hundreds of supporters filled downtown streets in anticipation of the president’s rally — his first since the virus brought much of public life to a standstill in March.
Upon entering the rally grounds, attendees were handed blue face coverings and directed through a maze of metal fencing that leads to a touchless temperature screening conducted by volunteers in purple smocks.
City police erected black fencing and other barriers around the 19,000-seat BOK Center, and officers midday Saturday arrested a protester who had sat dawn within the barricaded zone.
The protester, Sheila Buck of Tulsa, said she had a ticket to the event. She was wearing a shirt that read, “I can’t breathe,” among the final words uttered by George Floyd as a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck.
Adding to the fortified atmosphere, about 250 National Guard soldiers were on hand to supplement local authorities. Some were armed after the threat level was elevated, said Lt. Col. Geoff Legler, a spokesman for the Guard.
Initially, the plan was to equip them only with batons, shields and pepper spray.
The president is heading to Tulsa at a precarious moment for his presidency.
Recent polls show him trailing former vice president Joe Biden nationally and in a number of critical swing states, suggesting he has suffered politically from his handling of the coronavirus — which has killed more than 120,000 Americans — and his response to roiling demonstrations over racial injustice and police brutality triggered by Floyd’s killing last month.
The protests and the pandemic collided with Trump’s visit to Tulsa, where the number of new coronavirus cases continues to mount.
The county reported 136 new cases on Saturday — marking another high for both single-day and average cases — while the state as a whole reported 331 new infections.
Most police officers, National Guard soldiers, food vendors and the vast majority of people in line chose not to wear face coverings, though Trump-branded masks dotted the crowd.
The Confederate flag also appeared — all the more striking because Oklahoma was not a state at the time of the Civil War. Margene Dunivant and her son Christian Lynch, both of Tulsa, sat on the edge of the crowd, taking in the scene.
“Everybody here is just full-on American and American Dream and hard-working, and just believes in everything America,” said Dunivant, 52.
“Nowadays, it’s like you put on a Trump shirt and you’re considered racist, and it’s just wrong.
We’re good people, and we love everybody.” A clashing view was also on display in Tulsa, where counteractions were planned with such names as “Dump the Trump Rally” and “Rally Against Hate.”
Antipathy to the president — and objections to his insistence on gathering thousands of people indoors for a campaign event — fused with the outpouring for Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating freedom for enslaved black people.
“It’s irresponsible to say the least,” said Mareo Johnson, a pastor and the founder of Black Lives Matter Tulsa.
His organization was involved in organizing a Saturday demonstration at John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, less than a mile from the president’s rally.
