Trump campaign denies claims that K-Pop fans derailed Tulsa rally

Donald Trump’s campaign team has denied claims it was fooled by TikTok users and K-pop fans, after it was claimed that thousands of people signed up for the president’s rally in Tulsa to sabotage the event.

Saturday’s rally in Oklahoma was poorly-attended, with the New York Times reporting that the discrepancy of ticket requests to attendees likely came from an undercover campaign by K-Pop fans to sabotage the event.

But Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale has now hit out at the claims, and said in a statement: “Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how rallies work”.

He went on to describe reports of Trump’s first re-election rally as “unprofessional” and said journalists were “gleefully” covering the efforts made on TikTok to derail the event.

Mr Parscale added that registering for a ticket did not necessarily guarantee a seat at the venue.

“Registering for a rally means you’ve RSVPd with a cell phone number and we constantly weed out bogus numbers,” he said, adding the campaign’s attendance numbers did not account for the “bogus numbers”.

According to Forbes, only 6,200 people filled the 19,000-capacity BOK Centre on Saturday evening, and an outdoor rally scheduled for overflow attendees was subsequently cancelled by the Trump campaign.

In the wake of Saturday’s event, Trump’s attendance figures were also mocked by Pink, who compared the event  to one of her past gigs there.

“I think I sold that same place out in five minutes. #donkeyshow,” she tweeted.

After one person suggested that the coronavirus pandemic may have kept people from attending, Pink responded: “Here’s my theory; don’t hurt the people that love you. I would never ask people to come to an arena right now. No good person would.”