Trump Smears ‘Black Lives Matter’ Protesters Outside His ‘Empty’ Rally As ‘Very Bad People,’ ‘Thugs’

President Donald Trump kicked off his Tulsa campaign rally on Saturday by attacking the Fake News and castigating the hundreds of “Black Lives Matter” protesters gathered outside his half-empty rally as “very bad people.”

“You are warriors, I’ve been watching – I’ve been watching, the fake news for weeks now and everything is negative,” Trump told the crowd. “Don’t go. Don’t come. Don’t do anything. Today it was like, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said, appearing to make excuses for why his campaign failed to fill thousands of empty seats inside the 19,000 seat venue.

“You are warriors, thank you,” he said before launching an attack on peaceful protesters outside. “We had some very bad people outside. We had some very bad people outside they were doing bad things.”

Trump begins by castigating the “fake news“ and the “very bad people“ outside who tried to stop them from entering.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 21, 2020

President Trump: "We had some very bad people outside. They were doing bad things." pic.twitter.com/HauIPtcDBu

— The Hill (@thehill) June 21, 2020

“We just saw it outside. You saw these thugs that came along,” Trump said, referring to peaceful protesters outside the stadium.

“These people call them protesters,” he said, attacking the media as the crowd began to boo.

Trump conflates peaceful protesters with "thugs." He then pivots to bashing and mocking CNN. pic.twitter.com/K1MjZwovnD

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2020

Trump’s attacks on protesters came as Twitter mocked the thousands of empty seats inside the Tulsa BOK Center.

I mean it looks like there are a few empty seats there. pic.twitter.com/owucsmMLf1

— Sasha (@SashaBeauloux) June 20, 2020

Birdseye view of the more than half-empty Trump rally…pic.twitter.com/4JtbdCQpoO

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) June 20, 2020

I’ve been to minor league hockey games with more fans, and the tickets weren’t free https://t.co/O1fNeTHR1y

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) June 20, 2020

Workers are starting to break down the overflow stage, which the Trump camp spent an untold sum to build and which went unused by the president. https://t.co/7TiwRgoX3a

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) June 20, 2020