 Good morning. This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. We're talking community matters at this point with Randy Crabill. Randy Crabill is a reporter for the Tulsa World newspaper in Tulsa. And we know how he spent his weekend. Hi, Randy. Thank you for joining us on the show. Thank you very much for asking. Well, you wrote a piece that appeared in today's paper. You've written several pieces leading up to, you know, the Trump rally over the weekend, but you wrote a piece which it had a, it had a date line of 3am in the morning. So that means you were up pretty late, I think last night writing this piece. Well, so maybe that was 3am your time. I wasn't up quite that late last night, but I was up pretty late Saturday night. Getting all the stuff in. And, you know, it has been a really busy week in Tulsa, a week and a half or two weeks. Just a lot of attention because of, you know, president coming to town to a place like Tulsa is always a big deal. And when you have the circumstances surrounding it, it became an even bigger deal. Well, you wrote, you wrote an article with a headline. I know the headlines are not always the work of the reporter but the headline reads a bar in COVID-19 outbreak, which is an important thing we should discuss Tulsa gets through potentially explosive weekend. So how did you see it as explosive going in. Yeah, well, people were very concerned here that the combination of controversial figure even here restarting his campaign. A lot of emotion on both sides, plus the public health concerns with COVID-19. Some of the other things that have been going on with protests over policing. We've had those here, we've had questions about incidents involving policing here. Now the demonstrations we've had here have been almost entirely peaceful and orderly nobody's really gotten hurt or anything like that and like another some other places but there was a lot of concern that it could get pretty dangerous here pretty fast. Yeah, well, but that somehow Tulsa escaped that to what do you attribute the escape. Well, we're still trying to figure that out. Maybe they just don't like Tulsa, but I mean my sense is it's a combination of things. I mean, I think I think the campaign the Trump campaign oversold it from the beginning. And I think they kind of created some false expectations that actually might have kept people away. I mean, if you have to fight, you know, 800,000 people to get one of 19,000 seats, you may just decide it's not it's not worth it. And it's especially not worth it. If you think you may get deathly ill, if you think you may be in the middle of a riot. You know, and there's a certain amount of expense involved and travel is not always that easy right now. So I think all of those things kind of came into into play that but I also have to say that I think some of the local leaders were a factor in not so much in the low turnout but for instance to the black leadership in the city. There were people were outraged when it was originally announced it was going to be on June 19, which is Juneteenth. And it's been celebrated in this city for decades. I mean, it's been kind of a big deal. And this year's celebration had actually been canceled because of COVID. So now the president is not all that popular with the black population is going to defy all the public health directives and have his is his rally here and people were really upset and I had people calling me who are almost in tears because they were afraid that that their part of town was going to go up in flames and they didn't. So anyway, they really worked to keep a lid on it and they quickly organized a Juneteenth celebration they encouraged all everybody to go there instead of to the truck. That was in the nearby neighborhood that was that was a distance away so it would draw people there instead of at the exact area. Exactly. In the way the rally was set up made it more difficult to have confrontations they they they blocked off about six square blocks in downtown where nobody could go unless you had a ticket or a credential and you couldn't go in there and kind of wander around you had to go. Excuse me you had to go directly from the entry point to the arena. So there was no mingling up close to the arena of the various factions or even Trump supporters in fact there were Trump supporters who complained that they couldn't you know show their support outside or they could but they had to be like two or three blocks away. Good move. All of those factors kind of and then you know they they brought in a lot of head police from all over they had National Guard there. And so, you know, I think all that factored into turning out to be a really quiet weekend. So do you think that's a really good good news report because it had prospect of being explosive for sure. But do you think the the the waiver that the Trump campaign asked them to sign when they signed up, kept people away where they said they excuse him from any liability if they caught the coven. I don't I don't know if I don't know if it kept people away. But I think I think COVID-19 may have kept people away. So here's the thing is that they're there in my experience at least around here. There are a lot of people who are Trump supporters or at least loyal Republicans who don't want to vote for a Democrat. They don't want to get COVID-19 either either and they you know they trust their doctors more than they do the politicians and the doctors are telling them you can't do stuff like that. And so, you know, I think they're I don't know what the number is. But I think there were a lot of people who under other circumstances would have gone to Trump rally who decided it wasn't worth the risk. And I know that kind of runs contrary to some of what he was saying. And what his campaign was saying is that no it's fine, you know, you don't have to worry about COVID or whatever. I think it was a little contradictory what they what they were saying. Yeah. Sorry, but it was some interesting reports on how many people showed up. I guess I got some of this out of your article. The fire department counted 6200. The Trump Organization counted 10,000. You know, we have concerns about their accuracy going way back to 2017. And then there was a story about how a million people signed up on the web. And there was supposed to be a big crowd outside, but it didn't materialize. So the Trump Organization removed all the, you know, the meeting paraphernalia from the outside of the auditorium. So it wouldn't be an embarrassment. And of course, the TV shot showed the upper reaches of the auditorium pretty much empty. So this was probably a, well, you know, it was a disappointment to him. He was making sounds like he wanted to fire his campaign manager, which actually he's threatened that before the fellow named Brad best bow. You're nobody if you haven't been fired by Donald Trump. Yeah, he's got 450 firings under his belt already. It's an old time record. It's better than the apprentice as a matter of fact. Anyway, so did you go. Yeah, oh yeah, I was there. Yeah. Yeah. So on the matter of attendance. We had a reporter there who is actually a sports writer. Our sports writers aren't doing a whole lot right now. So she was assigned to cover it. She's covered a lot of events in there. And, and, and I know how much it seats. We think it was about 10,000. That's where the 10,000 figure comes from. The official said 6200 and I have to tell you, I really think there were more than 6200 people in there. The, and then I saw something where the Trump campaign said there were 12,000 people went through the, the metal detectors. So I don't know. Whatever it was, it wasn't what they expected. What about the tick tock thing. Reputedly people, you know, in the tick tock organization, whatever that is. Yeah, it was signing up on a, I'm not really going to go but I'll just sign up in order to stuff the ballot box. Well there was a there was an online effort and I guess the now a woman on tick tock has gotten a lot of notice for starting this but I don't know much about tick tock either other than it's just another social media platform. But, which I guess appeals a lot to fans of Korean pop music and somehow they got involved, but there was an attempt to, to turn in a lot of false registrations and I don't know if you look at the registrations or not but when they do these things I think what a lot of people don't realize the reason you register is so that they can get your cell phone number and your email address that that's the whole point of doing that. And so when it started out there were people who thought well we'll just we'll just sign up and we'll get all 19,000 tickets and there won't be anybody there well of course they didn't cut off tickets at 19,000 they just kept taking all the tickets and and and I don't know if 800,000 or a million was accurate or if the campaign was getting overly enthusiastic. I will say whatever that whatever the number was and the and plus the publicity around it that was created by tick tock and this other and these other things. I think it added to the idea that. Okay, there's just, you know, an enormous number of people are going to be there and there's no point in us even trying I wouldn't be surprised if it added to that. When you were inside watching did you see Trump's remarks did you see his, his speech which was what a couple hours I guess it was an hour and 42 minutes and I watched it all how would you how would you characterize it I mean he's often given speeches that are rambling, and they have often included you know a lot of exaggerations and insults, but how would you characterize it. Well it was. It was interesting I guess. I mean here's the thing about Trump in person he can actually be pretty entertaining telling stories and stuff. Of course, you know they're, they're all about, I mean they're all self directed, you know. But the other thing about it is is that he's the president of the United States he's not, he's not breaking in a stand up routine for the club circuit you know. He talks for 15 minutes about, you know why he might have looked shaky on that stage at West Point. And the whole point of the story was to, you know, attack the credibility of the press. You know, it just it seems like why are you, why are you doing that that you know and I think most people, either there or watching it either didn't know what he was talking about or they'd already forgot, you know people didn't remember that incident I don't. I understand why he gets frustrated sometimes but. He thinks it pretty much on himself but you know Pascal blame the press. He said the press was responsible for the low attendance. Sure, right well the press the Chinese and. And the anarchists. And I mean I think you know I think look I think there's something to the idea that people didn't show up because they were worried about the flu and in riots but in the case of the flu the press is only reporting what the health care experts are saying. And in the case of you know riots and stuff they're only reporting what's been going on in other cities and. And there were a lot of concerns here I mean early in the week I mean right up until you know the last people here were concerned that something could happen and it would get out of hand I don't know if you know this. There were a lot of businesses around town that boarded up their windows and just closed down because they were afraid of what was going to happen. So, you know, so I think that probably had an effect but look I mean that's just, you know, I think that's looking in this country people at the level of Donald Trump and his campaign they know how the press works. So, they ought to be able to know how to deal with it. And either to deal with it or they're intentionally, you know, setting stuff up so they can blame the press. Yeah, you can tell that even from the four corners of what he said the, the other night, because he kept on referring to what he'd seen on television. Yeah, that's kind of an interesting. And this is not an original, but you know one of the things he talked about the other night was how proud he was of the, all the televisions on Air Force One. But at the same time he's very critical of the, of the media and of television news so you know you'd ask what I thought about the speech. And I wrote this that, you know, the thing is, he actually raises valid points I mean, at times you know, okay, why, you know, what about Joe Biden's record and why haven't we seen him on the campaign trail. Those are all, there may be good answers for him, but those are legitimate questions to raise. What he says is that it all gets lost in, you know, the noise that he creates with these with some of these speeches, you know, talking. When did everybody fastened on they fastened on him trying to be funny about about Coronavirus test. Instead, I didn't think that was funny. Did you think that was a joke. Didn't sound like I did think he would I did think he was he was trying to be funny. Again, the problem is you're the president of the United States. And whenever you say something, somebody's going to take it seriously. And he had to know that that was going to be one of the things that got pulled out and in blown up. Well, he might he he often goes for, you know, consternation and try to get everybody whipped up about something. And I wonder, you know, from the footage that I saw of his speech that the crowd was really excited. What was your impression of the crowd. Yeah, the people who were there were very excited. And and and that's a pretty loud arena. Most people probably outside of Tulsa don't realize it, but that's one of the number one arena concert venues in the country. And so it's got really good acoustics and really good sound and it's, I mean it. It wasn't full but it at times it sounded like it was full. I mean, the people were really people who were there were really signed on. Yeah, they were applauding nearly everything you said and except when he talked about his, his insults and enemies, then they were making booing sounds and they were right along with them as far as I can. Right, right. No, absolutely. I mean, were they wearing masks with it. Like, you really can't. But not many. I mean, people with his campaign and with the White House were wearing masks. A few people in the crowd were wearing masks. You know, here, I can't, I don't know about worldwide or nationwide but here a lot of people still don't understand that wearing a mask is not really to protect you so much as it is to protect everybody around you. So they take the attitude. Well, if I'm not wearing a mask, I'm not hurting anybody but myself. We have a question from a viewer Randy. Let's see. Did you have your temperature taken, or were you offered a mask when, when you when you covered this event was the press in general wearing masks. Are you concerned right now about catching Corona that evening. Okay, so that's a very good question. So the event was at seven o'clock in the evening at eight o'clock in the morning I had to be at the site to be have my temperature taken and have a COVID test, which I passed. And I could spell COVID-19 so I passed. They swab they did a nasal swab and it came back. So I think that they tested every or they took everybody's temperature I didn't actually have to have it taken when I went in because I'd had it taken earlier. But everybody else who was just showing up at the arena they had to have it taken there. The press was almost all wearing masks now I wasn't offered masks because I had one. And am I concerned. Well, so I'm on the list to get a COVID test. So I'm concerned enough that I'm going to be tested again. But I don't have any I don't have any symptoms and is it. I was more. I was more concerned before the event and I am now because it was not nearly as crowded as I thought it would be and they did. I think they took tried to take measures to control it. Were they rejecting anybody. I would have to say they did but I don't know of anyone and that and that's the question were they were they really taking temperature where they just a thing in front of your face until you really. So what about what about Tulsa Tulsa had I mean in the south I don't know if you include Oklahoma in the south do we include Oklahoma in the south. Oklahoma is kind of an orphan we sometimes we're south sometimes we're the Midwest sometimes we're the west that we kind of float and actually depends on what part of Oklahoma area. South Eastern Oklahoma that's definitely the south. If you're west of Oklahoma city that's definitely the west of the southwest. So interesting. We were all in over the weekend we were all singing from the Rogers and Amazon plague. Yeah, right. That's our state song now. Is that right well it should be. So you know what is the situation in general in Tulsa in Oklahoma on COVID. My last reading of it was that you had a spike. Yeah, and that's continued. Our mayor, there was some tension between the mayors of Oklahoma city and Tulsa and a few smaller cities and governor over shutting down not shutting down so Oklahoma city and Tulsa took some pretty drastic measures early on and and and our numbers have been pretty low until probably two weeks ago. Since then they've been going up and the number of cases has been rising. The number of hospitalizations has been rising. I don't think the number of deaths is rising but I think that's probably a little bit of a lagging statistic, because you know for you know first you get sick, then you get hospitalized, and then you either get well or you don't. And I think it you know the governor, the governor pushed for stuff to start opening up at the end of May. The mayor of Tulsa was not keen on that, but he kind of got forced into a corner everybody else around something along the lines of we've had two factories. We've actually had two factories close here one of them makes school buses and the other one makes appliances, and they've had to close because of COVID outbreaks in those plants. So that can you know that can cause us by actually one of the biggest sources of COVID in Oklahoma is a county out in the Oklahoma panhandle which is pretty sparsely populated. But because it's sparsely populated they have a big meat processing plant out there, and everybody in that meat processing plant got sick. And no surprise there. So what about the, was it the mayor wanted to put a curfew on and judge the judge rejected the curfew. Well wasn't a judge the mayor here. Well I say the mayor, the city the police department was going to impose a 10 o'clock curfew on the area around the, the, the arena. And apparently, the president called him and said that that was unfair to his followers and so they lift so the, so the next thing we know there's the police are putting out a press release that says, the curfew has been lifted at the request of the secret service. And which seemed, I mean I don't know anything about these things but I was surprised that the secret service would want to curfew but anyway, so that's what happened with that I'm not sharing the long run it made a whole lot of difference. One of the things that was going on and I don't know if this is why they lifted it or what to deal with it. There were, there were a fair enough, we had people who were showing up like Monday, or even Sunday, I'm talking about a week ago today, or a week ago Sunday to get in line. And they were camping out in front of the center so these people were like camping out on the street. And they had to move on Thursday because they put up this perimeter. But anyway, I think, you know, some of them may have been in danger of violating the curfew. Yeah. You also had an issue with her where, as I recall, two lawyers went to court. In order to require social distancing but they lost what happened. Yeah, well, yeah, there were a couple of lawyers that tried to get an injunction. And it was, it was fast track to the state Supreme Court and I have to admit I didn't actually read the, the, the opinion of the Supreme Court but they said that there was that they couldn't block it. So, I mean, I don't know how it is in Hawaii but the state Supreme Court tries to be non political, but there are some places that they're probably just not good. It's just not going to get a question. Go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead. Okay. Let's see. Oh yeah. One question is a Trump looked completely demoralized and dejected. Do you think this will make him more dangerous, or will he understand he only has six months. Actually, it's less than that. I don't think he's going to salvage a legacy. Well, I mean, I don't know if they're talking about at the rally or if they're talking about that picture or that video of him getting off the helicopter in the wee hours in the morning in in Washington. Most of us don't look that great coming home at two o'clock. But anyway, he did he did look very dejected. And, you know, that's, that's hard to say he. Say what you will he tends to be somebody who puts up a fight. I mean, I would say that he's thinking and a lot of other people are thinking we got to do something different. Now what that something is, I don't know, but I would, you know, so we got to do something different and who knows what that something different is. I agree with you. Here's one other question. Where people who came to the event staying in town before and after. Where they from out of state where people in public areas where oh yeah where people out in public areas in Tulsa, like in restaurants that's a multiple question but yeah. Yeah, well I'll do my best. I don't know if I have a great answer. I don't know I don't think anybody knows the exact, I guess you would say geographical mix of people we know that, as I was saying earlier we talked to a person from Massachusetts, one from San Diego so. So, so there was some kind of a mix there. There were people who I know drove in from Louisiana and other places like that. And apparently the hotels were pretty busy and they were very excited about that I can tell you. And they would have been in restaurants and. So, yeah, I mean that and that was one of the big concerns about the whole event was, we know we're going to have some number of people coming in and then we're going to have some number of people leaving. So, you know, some people called it as said it had the potential to be a super spreader. So, so yeah, yeah, I know that's not a great answer but that's the best I can tell you is that there is concern about that. Randy, I want to do one other thing before we close and let's go through the, the photographs that appeared with your article. I guess it was this morning or yesterday in the Tulsa world. So let's go through them and can you tell us what each one depicts okay, I'll do my best. Okay, that's one. Yeah, well that's Donald Trump standing on the podium at the back of a home center. Donald Trump is a person that's a protester anti Trump protester, and she's down that building in the background is part of the Tulsa County courthouse. And so that those people were kind of marching around. So this was the thing I kind of got in a little bit of trouble in. The, the person on the extreme left is the chief of the second Fox nation and in Oklahoma, the guy next to him with the glasses on his GT by him he's the mayor of Tulsa. And then he had the lieutenant governor behind Trump you can't see him as as Senator James Langford, Senator Langford's wife is in the red dress and then that's Senator Jim Inhofe standing next to her. And so he had to come down off the Air Force one, and it appeared that he had shaken hands with the first couple of people in line. And then when he got to, got to the mayor he just, he gave him that you can see in the picture is a raised fist salute or something and I, I thought he had snubbed the president I was I mean that the president snubbed the mayor. But on reflection I'm not so sure I don't think he actually did shake hands with the earlier people. What I thought was him putting his hand out to shake was actually him putting his hand in front of his body and and holding it. You know he's he doesn't really like to shake hands and I don't anyway that that was him getting off of Air Force one and Tulsa and that was the official receiving line. Okay. What else we got. So this was before I got there. And I believe that is. I believe that's Eric Trump, and then Laura Trump who is his wife, and they spoke before Trump spoke. They had a long list of surrogates who got up and talk. And one of the things is kind of to me odd about this is that he had about 10 members of Congress there from all over the country, they were supposed to be, you know benefiting from this I noticed that the president from New York said that she got about $150,000 for campaign by going on that trip so I don't I don't know but anyway. Anyway, it's that those folks tonight and they were speaking so that was that was the Trump children. Okay, and and then spent spoke to me and spoke I guess that it spoke. There was actually. So one of the sort of side issues that developed during the week was that the the the African American community was not pleased about him having it on Juneteenth. So they so they backed off of that. Then the governor without consulting anybody said well I'm going to try and talk Donald Trump into visiting Greenwood. In other words the black black neighborhood well that caused some heads to explode and they said we don't want him here and we're afraid that people will, you know go crazy. So they backed off of that so what they settled on was Vice President Pence coming in a couple of hours earlier, and meeting with some black people. And, and so he was there early and then he, he came and he he was like the warm up act I don't know what they call it but kind of the he led into President Trump. Did he go to Greenwood. He didn't he went to an area that's predominantly black and a church that's called the dream center and met with some. He met with some black folks who who were who are not the ones who have a problem with Donald Trump. Okay, or at least a serious enough one to avoid, you know, you might have an incident. Yeah. Got any more photos. Right. Okay, so on the fellow on the extreme left in the second row. That's representative Kevin Herne, who represents Tulsa in Congress. Then in front of him, the guy with the blue face mask on that's representative Frank Lucas. So these these are congressional people. And then in the red dress again, that's Cindy Langford that's Senator Langford's wife. Then next to her is Senator Langford with red hair. This fellow right here is Lieutenant Governor Matt Pennell and not many people know him but he actually had a pretty big role in getting Trump elected. In 2016, he was with the RNC and was in charge of the state campaigns. And as some people might remember, Trump did not have a very well organized campaign. So it was up to Matt Pennell and some other people with the RNC to get, you know, get people mobilizing places like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Those states that they won that made the difference in the election. Now, his reward for that was that he lost his job. Okay, we got. He wasn't he wasn't exactly fired, but he thought he might become the RNC chairman, and instead they, they named. He met Romney's sister so he resigned and came home. And I was Governor of Oklahoma. Small world. Yeah. Okay, I think I think that's it are there more pictures if not. There we go. Okay, so this is yeah this was down on the area that I mentioned there were a couple of blocks where, you know, people would come into, you know, contact with law enforcement and different different sides. And I don't know exactly what this incident is but but that's what that's what's going on that's in downtown Tulsa. And that's, and that's obviously the plane when he came in on Saturday he had him fly over downtown Tulsa. Even though that's not the route they would take to land at the airport but he wanted to fly over. As I pointed out, that they one of the things that would have stood out the most to him was a big in big letters painted on Greenwood Avenue which is on near which is downtown with black lives matter so that might have been a harbinger of what was Randy is great to talk to you it's great to have this conversation I wish we had more time. Randy Cravel of the Tulsa World newspaper in Tulsa to so much more we could discuss, and I hope we have the opportunity. Thank you. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Stay safe.