BBC Russian

Recap

Here’s what’s happened today:

The president’s rally in Tulsa came in for criticism after the president said he had asked for Covid-19 testing to be slowed down. The White House has claimed Trump was joking. But his remarks are in line with a series of previous remarks he’s made expressing doubts about testing and its uncanny ability to increase the number of recorded cases.
The president’s much hyped return turned to humiliation when he failed to fill the arena in the Republican stronghold of Oklahoma.
Our columnist Richard Wolffe says Trump’s Tulsa rally was just another sad farce. “Campaign officials should be ready for firings and fury after a pathetic event made worse by wretched attempted excuses”.
Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney behind inquiries into Trump allies, resigned after William Barr announced his firing

Oliver Laughland is on the ground for us in Tulsa and says scenes on the streets are peaceful at the moment:

Oliver Laughland (@oliverlaughland)
Protesters have converged at an underpass in Greenwood, site of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, there are 100s if not over 1k people.

It’s become a dance party, also with very little social distancing and limited use of masks: pic.twitter.com/YoSND72SF2
June 21, 2020

4.30am BST 04:30

David Smith

Donald Trump declared “the silent majority is stronger than ever before” at his comeback rally on Saturday, but thousands of empty seats appeared to tell a different story.

The US president’s much hyped return to the campaign trail turned to humiliation when he failed to fill a 19,000-capacity arena in the Republican stronghold of Oklahoma, raising fresh doubts about his chances of winning re-election.

“The Emperor has no crowd,” tweeted Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama.

The overwhelmingly white gathering at Trump’s first rally since March was dwarfed by the huge multiracial crowds that have marched for Black Lives Matter across the country in recent weeks, reinforcing criticism that the president is badly out of step with the national mood.

The flop in Tulsa was an unexpected anticlimax for an event that seemed to offer a combustible mix of Trump, protests over racial injustice and a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 120,000 Americans and put more than 40m out of work.

You can read the full report below:

Updated at 4.30am BST

4.16am BST 04:16

Lois Beckett

More on the protests in Tulsa.

Mason Haynes, 21, an Oklahoma film student who has been photographing and filming the protest, told the Guardian over the phone that law enforcement had used pepper-ball chemical irritant and shot bean bags at protesters near the corner of Fifth St and Boulder Avenue about half an hour ago.

The protesters in that area included both Black Lives Matter and pro-Trump protesters, Haynes said.

Various law enforcement vehicles had been trying to get through the intersection, he said, and a bus full of the national guard had “got stuck in front of the protesters, and the cops kind of had to take control,” he said, “by shooting peaceful protesters with chemical irritant.”

sam (@samanthavicent)
had to transition to the gas mask. a look at the area while some of the chemical irritant was still in the air. 4th and Boulder, Tulsa. pic.twitter.com/6MHoZvliTf
June 21, 2020

More recently, reporters with the Tulsa World and others tweeted that some protesters have marched to Tulsa’s historic “Black Wall Street” in Greenwood, where music is playing and the demonstration has become upbeat.

Tim Landes (@TimLandesJr)
Protesters have gathered at the front steps of Vernon AME Church, which withstood the Tulsa Race Massacre. #BlackLivesMatter is projected on the side of the church. pic.twitter.com/n5mh3Ljb9G
June 21, 2020

4.06am BST 04:06

Protesters are still out on the streets of Tulsa following the Donald Trump rally. Police fired pepper balls into the crowd earlier but the situation appears to have calmed down for now.

Harrison Grimwood (@grimwood_hmg)
It has calmed down at 4th and Boulder quite a bit. Just people sniping at each other.
June 21, 2020

3.55am BST 03:55

Outrage as Trump says he asked for coronavirus testing to be slowed down

Max Benwell

In one of the more remarkable moments of the night, Trump told the crowd in Oklahoma that he had told his “people” to slow down Covid-19 testing across the country.

The White House has claimed Trump was joking. But his remarks are in line with a series of previous remarks he’s made expressing doubts about testing and its uncanny ability to increase the number of recorded cases.

Trump’s admission has shocked even some of his most strident critics, with the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie equating it to a murder confession:

Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy)
This should be a massive, MASSIVE scandal talked about non-stop until we get to the bottom of what happened with our testing failures. https://t.co/dTqt3DkFVW
June 21, 2020

Robert Reich (@RBReich)
Trump admitted at Tulsa rally that he asked officials to "slow the testing down" for COVID-19, because "more tests find more cases."

If he cared about public health he'd want to do more testing and find more cases. But he he cares only about his own reelection, so he doesn't.
June 21, 2020

Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer)
Who among us doesn’t tell jokes about denying testing to people who might be infected with a lethal virus? https://t.co/vqOPAmI2fP
June 21, 2020

Updated at 4.02am BST

3.53am BST 03:53

In an interview with Fox News, Donald Trump has repeated the conspiracy theory that the recent protests “are all paid for”.

3.39am BST 03:39

There are reports of police using pepper balls to disperse a crowd protesting outside the BOK Center, where Donald Trump held his rally tonight.

Shannon Rousseau (@shannonrousseau)
RIGHT NOW: Protests are starting outside the BOK Center in downtown Tulsa near 4th & Boulder. News On 6’s Brooke Griffin says police have used pepper balls in the area. She says some people ran away, others poured water on their faces. Heavy police presence in area. #TulsaRally pic.twitter.com/hxfy1e9G6n
June 21, 2020

Updated at 3.40am BST

3.33am BST 03:33

The Trump campaign had reported hundreds of thousands of people had signed up for tonight’s rally. There were definitely not that many in Tulsa, and there are reports that social media campaigns on campaigns including TikTok had been used to get people to claim tickets they had no intention of using. A member of the president’s campaign denied to CNN that was the case.

“We had legitimate 300,000 signups of Republicans who voted in the last four elections. Those are not [TikTok] kids. It was fear of violent protests. This is obvious with the lack of families and children at the rally. We normally have thousands of families,” the official told the broadcaster.

Updated at 3.49am BST

3.26am BST 03:26

Trump went after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez twice in his speech tonight. As Ocasio-Cortez herself says, it’s interesting that the most powerful person in the United States sees a first-term member of Congress as one of his main opponents. Perhaps because she represents what many of his most loyal supporters fear.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC)
Ah yes - in fact, I’m so uncharismatic and untalented that the President of the United States has dedicated time at multiple rallies over two years to talk about me, a first term member of Congress 💁🏽‍♀️ https://t.co/OncmV2u7Nw
June 21, 2020

3.21am BST 03:21

A bit more on Trump’s use of racist language tonight. He called Covid-19 “kung flu” and then illustrated a fictional story about a break-in by describing the intruder as a “hombre”.

3.10am BST 03:10

One significant person Trump did not mention this evening: George Floyd, whose killing by police have sparked an extraordinary few weeks of protest in the US. Mike Pence, who spoke before Trump, did mention Floyd and said there was “no excuse” for his death.

Colby Itkowitz (@ColbyItkowitz)
Trump has been speaking for 90 minutes. No mention of George Floyd. No mention of the 121,000 Americans who died from the coronavirus.
June 21, 2020

US president says 'silent majority is stronger than ever before' – as it happened

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