Trump warns protesters to face 'different scene' at his Oklahoma rally
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[June 20, 2020]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.
President Donald Trump on Friday threatened unspecified action against
any protesters at his weekend re-election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a
warning that his campaign said was not directed at peaceful
demonstrators.
"Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are
going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you
have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much
different scene!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Trump's campaign, said Trump was referring
to agitators and not peaceful protesters.
"The president supports peaceful protests and people who are exercising
their First Amendment rights," Lotter told MSNBC in an interview
following the tweet. "If we see what we've seen in other cities with
rioting, looting, setting buildings on fire and physical violence, then
that's going to be something that's going to be met by police."
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a briefing
that earlier destructive protests were unacceptable while peaceful
demonstrators would be allowed: "What he was meaning are violent
protesters, anarchists, looters - the kind of lawlessness we saw
before."
The rally is Trump's first major re-election event following the novel
coronavirus pandemic that shuttered much of the country and comes amid
weeks of civil unrest over the treatment of African Americans and
growing protests over racism and policing.
With more than 100,000 people expected in the area of the rally on
Saturday, Tulsa mayor G.T. Bynum on Friday rescinded a curfew he had
ordered for several downtown city blocks around the venue.
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President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte,
North Carolina, U.S., March 2, 2020. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
"Today, the Secret Service asked the City to lift the curfew order
this weekend. In compliance with this request, the City has
rescinded the order," the city of Tulsa said in a press release
quoted by CBS News.
Trump thanked Bynum in a tweet for canceling the curfew.
The Republican president faced backlash over a tweet during protests
after the recent death in Minneapolis police custody of George
Floyd, an African American man, that said "when the looting starts,
the shooting starts." The phrase evoked a white segregationist who
was Miami mayor in the 1960s, though Trump later said he was unaware
of its origins.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a veteran civil rights activist set to address
a Juneteenth event in Tulsa later on Friday, called Trump's tweet
"disrespectful," especially following the recent deaths of Floyd and
another African American man, Rayshard Brooks, in Atlanta.
"To have a threat like that you're provoking an incident, and you're
provoking an interaction that is unnecessary," Sharpton told MSNBC.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Franklin Paul, Jonathan Oatis
and Daniel Wallis)
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