White House hits back at Bolton's book interview, says Tulsa rally attendance did not anger Trump
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany joins 'Fox & Friends.'
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that President Trump “was not angry at all” that there were a number of empty seats at his first campaign rally in months.
She added that “the president was quite energized” at Saturday’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla.
“He was in a great mood,” McEnany continued. “It was a great night and there was a lot to celebrate.”
She also noted that the president “is in his best mood when he gets to speak directly to the American people because that's what he loves.”
In advance of the Saturday event, Trump supporters had been lining up for days to secure their seats in an arena that holds just under 20,000, and the Trump campaign touted last week that they received over 1 million ticket requests. Still, on Saturday several seats were noticeably empty.
Several media outlets, including CNN and MSNBC, were quick to point out that Trump failed to fill the arena, despite expectations of a packed house.
Top Democrats had gloated that teenage activists had sabotaged turnout at Trump’s rally and within hours the Trump campaign fired back, saying that media organizations are complicit in spreading false narratives about the event – and that protesters and the coronavirus were the real culprits.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., specifically asserted that teenagers allegedly reserved scores of tickets for the Tulsa event online – then failed to show up, thus preventing others from being able to attend. "Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote to Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, referring to a popular Chinese video-sharing social media application.
A spokesperson for the Tulsa Fire Department told Fox News on Sunday that fire marshal records show just under 6,200 scanned tickets were logged for the rally at the BOK Center. The figure doesn't include Trump team staff members or private suites, which were fully booked. The arena's capacity is 19,000.
Parscale, on Sunday, countered by explaining the campaign's process for screening out false ticket requests, which was implemented after activists made similar efforts to derail previous rallies.
“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work," Parscale said. "Reporters who wrote gleefully about TikTok and K-Pop [Korean pop music] fans – without contacting the campaign for comment – behaved unprofessionally and were willing dupes to the charade."
“I was with him after the rally, it was a huge success,” McEnany said. “His speech got rave reviews.”
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She noted that the president “was in good spirits on Marine One.” She also pointed out that Trump “routinely” draws an “extraordinary turnout as we saw, for instance, in the event with [Indian] Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi, 50,000 people turned out.”
Fox News’ Tyler Olson, Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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