President Trump’s re-election campaign pulled all the stops to a rally in Tulsa this weekend – with plans for a big festival that will set the stage for the Republican National Convention later this year, officials told The Post.
The “Great American Comeback” program, scheduled for Saturday, was crucial to the campaign, beginning anew more than three months after the coronavirus pandemic forced candidates off the track.
It will also act as a trial for campaigners and Republican National Committee officials before their face-to-face convention in Jacksonville this August.
The event will include bands, and organizers for Team Trump have hired private jets to fly in some of the more than 50 replacements that will be present. Several film crews have been recruited to record footage that will be quickly used in campaign advertisements.
A temperature check will be performed on site, and masks and hand sanitizers will also be distributed.
One million people have registered to attend the rally, the campaign said, adding that they hoped tens of thousands of people would actually attend.
The indoor event will be held at the Bank of Oklahoma Center, which holds 19,000 people. Next door, the second phase will be prepared to accommodate tens of thousands more.
Those who cannot enter the arena to see the main event will still have the chance to see the commander up close, a campaign source told The Post Thursday. Trump plans to perform at each stage and hopes to speak in both.
Other participants will include at least a dozen House Republicans and three GOP senators: Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) And Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
While the event will be expensive for the campaign, officials say they raised $ 14 million on Sunday just by promoting the Oklahoma rally and the president’s birthday.
The event was originally scheduled for Friday, but was moved because it landed on the same day as Juneteenth.
“Many of my African-American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date in honor of this Holiday, and by paying attention to this important opportunity and all that it represents,” Trump said when changing the date.
The location of the rally also came under fire amid national unrest over the death of police-detention George Floyd.
Tulsa in 1921 was the site where white mobs attacked black residents and their homes and businesses in the historic part of the city known as “Black Wall Street.” Hundreds of residents were killed and thousands more displaced.
In an Oval Office interview last month, Trump told The Post that he saw the demonstrations as important to his campaign, saying that he would be at a “big disadvantage” if COVID-19 prevented demonstrations before election day in November.
“I hope we can get a demonstration back before the election. I think it’s very important,” Trump said in the interview.
