Why hold a campaign rally at all if it is not safe? That’s the big question after the Trump campaign revealed everyone attending President Donald Trump’s rally at Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19 can only do so if they sign an online waiver absolving Trump and his campaign from any legal liability should they later get sick from COVID-19.
What We Know:
- An invitation to the Tulsa rally requires people register online for the event. The online form says all attendees waive their rights to sue if they get sick from the coronavirus.
“By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. liable for any illness or injury.”
- Oklahoma has done a good job of keeping COVID-19 under control. It ranks as the 39th most infected state with 7,626 confirmed cases and 357 death, as of Thursday evening, according to
- “Tulsans have managed one of the first successful reopening’s in the nation, so we can only guess that may be the reason President Trump selected Tulsa as a rally site,” Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum told CBS News. “The city of Tulsa continues to follow the State of Oklahoma’s OURS plan on COVID-19 response as it relates to events, which encourages the organizer to have enhanced hygiene considerations for attendees.”
- Tulsa County has 1,261 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the second highest in the state behind Oklahoma County’s 1,404. Tulsa County’s previous one-day high in new COVID-19 cases came to 45 on April 3 and April 29.
The event had already been controversial because of the site and the date. Tulsa is the site of the Greenwood massacre, where a white mob killed an estimated 300 black people and torched the neighborhood’s “Black Wall Street” in 1921, and the 19th is also known as Juneteenth, a holiday that marks the end of slavery in the United States. Amid criticism, the campaign has decided to move the event to January 20th instead.
