Why would CNN even bother going live on Saturday night for Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma? The network didn't plan to show the event. Instead, reporters spent two hours gloating over a lower crowd size and questioning Trump’s fitness to serve. After warning for a week about the health risk of attending the rally, Blitzer opened the show at 8 PM this way: “But in a surprising development, turnout for the event has been smaller than expected. The campaign is blaming protesters. The campaign is blaming the news media for the crowd size. Clearly, not a full house.”
Reporter Ryan Nobles declared victory even before the speech had begun: “Wolf, the Trump campaign was hoping that they were going to be able to demonstrate an enormous amount of enthusiasm behind the campaign and also make the point and the economy were ready to reopen. And at least by their own standards, fell short of those goals.”
“They certainly did,” cheered Blitzer.
Reporter Dana Bash offered her mind reading skills: “Look, if you look at those pictures, this is a very big crowd. But if you are Donald Trump and crowd size is the end-all, be-all for you, and you make a promise and it doesn't materialize, he has got to be seething right now.”
Blitzer agreed, “Yeah, he’s not very happy for sure.” Again, Trump was actually speaking at the moment they were talking. So rather than guess, the network could have simply found out Trump’s mood.
Instead, Blitzer offered conspiracy theories. At around 9:45 PM, the anchor talked to Sanjay Gupta and awkwardly noted, “[Trump’s] very sensitive to any suggestion that he’s not in perfect health right now. We didn’t have that video of him raising the glass and then – on there you can see it on the right part of the screen when he was drinking that water. It’s a very, very sensitive issue for him.”
As the event went on, CNN would dip in for about 15-20 seconds. But that was it. So if you wanted to hear people make fun of the speech for two hours -- but not actually watch it -- CNN was the place for you on Saturday night.
A partial transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Situation Room
6/20/2020
…
RYAN NOBLES: As you can see behind me, this arena is definitely not full. This is still a pretty good crowd by campaign standards. Hard to estimate exactly how many people are here. It's close to full but certainly not full. The entire bowl of the upper deck has yet to fill up and we expecting President Trump to appear at any moment.
NOBLES: But again, Wolf, the Trump campaign was hoping that they were going to be able to demonstrate an enormous amount of enthusiasm behind the campaign and also make the point and the economy were ready to reopen. And at least by their own standards, fell short of those goals. Wolf?
BLITZER: All right. They certainly did.…
DANA BASH: Look, if you look at those pictures, this is a very big crowd, but if you are Donald Trump and crowd size is the end all be all for you and you make a promise and it doesn't materialize, he has got to be seething right now.
BLITZER: Yeah, he’s not very happy for sure.
