Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh Monday dismissed claims being made that TikTok users hindered turnout at the President's Donald Trump's Tulsa rally over the weekend, saying that people making such claims "don't know how the president's rallies work" and that the Tulsa fire marshal "was wrong" with his count of just 6,200 inside the BOK Center.
"There are no reservations needed and people register for these rallies but it is always entry on a first-come-first-served basis," Murtaugh told Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime," adding that more than 12,000 went through detectors to enter the arena.
He also insisted that Campaign Manager Brad Parscale is correct with his blame on a "week's worth of constant negative media coverage, mostly offensive like CNN and MSNBC telling people that the most dangerous place in the world" was at a Trump rally.
But the threats of coronavirus or protester violence kept people away, said Murtaugh, as "normally" rallies for President Donald Trump attract families with children.
"There were not any children at all, and it is because we believed (families) were frightened away by more than a week's worth of 24-hour-a-day negative coverage, telling people that the Trump rally was a dangerous place to be," said Murtaugh. "The fact that 12,000 people still showed up I think shows a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the president."
And that many people, he added, "is approximately 11,990 more people than attended Joe Biden's last event. There is a gigantic enthusiasm gap between Joe Biden and President Trump. It is real and it is wide."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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