WASHINGTON (UK) – TikTok users and Korean pop music fans are being partly credited for inflating attendance expectations at a less-than-full arena at President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa on Saturday.
Social media users have claimed in posts and videos that they registered for free tickets to the rally as a prank.
Prior to the event, Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale said there had been more than one million ticket requests. However, the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena had many empty seats and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cancelled speeches.
The Trump campaign said that the entry was ‘first-come-first-served’ and that no one was issued an actual ticket.
“Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they’re being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number,” said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh. “But we thank them for their contact information.”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, responded to a tweet by Parscale blaming the media for discouraging attendees and cited bad behaviour by demonstrators outside.
“Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID,” she tweeted on Saturday. “KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too,” she added.
“My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens,” tweeted former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt.
CNN on Tuesday reported that a TikTok video posted by Mary Jo Laupp, a user who uses the hashtag #TikTokGrandma, was helping lead the charge. The video now has more than 700,000 likes.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field