Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Monday the enthusiasm for President Donald Trump was "very real" at the Tulsa rally on Saturday, despite reports of low numbers of people attending. She claimed that the "bots and the fake things" were not factored in when the response for the rally was factored in.
"People showed up, and having 11 million people watching, in our mind, shows that enthusiasm exists," McDaniel said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom," adding that she spoke to the Trump campaign, which said at least "double" the local fire marshal's count of 6,200 actually attended the rally.
However, there was a "little chaos" in Tulsa, including city officials forcing people who had been camping out waiting for the rally to leave early.
"You had it on Father's Day weekend," McDaniel said. "People were scared about violence and coronavirus, but people showed up ... Here's the thing, Joe Biden couldn't get a rally like that. We just saw his first event with empty chairs with circles around them in a school gym. So the enthusiasm exists for this president like we've never seen before. We are going to see that ramp up as we do more rallies going forward."
Trump is also "saying to open up America, that we can do that in a safe and healthy way, and you have Joe Biden saying we need to lock this country down," said McDaniel. "I feel very good about what we saw."
Trump does want to go out and have more rallies, said McDaniel, but more discussion will have to take place about health precautions and to make sure the rallies are live-streamed so more people can see them online.
"I'm going to be out there talking to voters and campaigning in person with people and actually show that we are opening up this economy and Joe Biden is going to continue to hide in his basement," said McDaniel.
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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