Trump's re-election campaign team rejects low turnout manipulation claim at Tulsa rally

US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign team has denied the claims that K-pop fans and TikTok users were behind the low turnout for Oklahoma rally. Teenagers across the United States are said to have pranked Trump’s campaign team by booking tickets for the rally with no intention to turn up so as to produce empty seats.

Former Republic strategist Steve Schmidt tweeted said that his 16-year-old daughter and her friends in Utah had hundreds of tickets. House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also took a jibe after the low turnout rally saying the team got fooled by TikTok users who tricked them into believing a turnout of over a million people by making fake bookings.

Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, said in a statement that the real reason behind the low turnout was “fake news media” warning people away from the rally because of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter protests. He said that recent images of American cities on fire had a “real impact” on people bringing their families and children to the rally.

“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,” he added.

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'Lame attempt'

Parscale hit out at reporters for “gleefully” writing about TikTok users and K-Pop fans without contacting the campaign for a comment, adding that they behaved unprofessionally. He claimed that the campaign team had already weeded out bogus tens of thousands numbers at the Tulsa rally in calculating possible attendee pool.

“These phony ticket requests never factor into our thinking. What makes this lame attempt at hacking our events even more foolish is the fact that every rally is general admission - entry is on a first-come-first-served basis and prior registration is not required,” he said.

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