Tom Petty Estate Issues Cease and Desist to Trump Campaign Over “I Won’t Back Down”
 “Trump was in no way authorized to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense behind.”

Tom Petty, June 2018 (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images)

By Allison Hussey June 21, 2020

The estate of Tom Petty has issued a cease and desist to Donald Trump’s presidential re-election campaign. The campaign used Petty’s song “I Won’t Back Down” at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma held Saturday night (June 20). In a statement posted after the rally, Petty’s family wrote that they had issued an official cease and desist to the campaign, adding “Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together.” Read the rest of the statement below.

Benmont Tench, a founding member of the Heartbreakers with Petty, added his own statement on Instagram. “I in no way approve of Trump even whistling any piece of music associated with our band,” he wrote.

Revisit Pitchfork’s feature “Here’s How Candidates Can Use Songs in Their Campaigns, Even If Songwriters Don’t Like It” on the Pitch.

https://twitter.com/tompetty/status/1274527971513004033

Divisions emerge on renaming military bases, reparations amid unrest: POLL

Two-thirds of Black Americans favor renaming Confederate bases,

By Kendall Karson 19 June 2020

As the country grapples with a widespread reckoning over the prevalence of racism, majorities of Americans are resistant to renaming U.S. military bases that carry the names of Confederate leaders, and are voicing particular opposition to providing descendants of slaves with reparations, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday.

While 56% are opposed to changing U.S. military bases named for Confederate leaders, which stand as a reminder of the nation’s complicated history with race, 42% of Americans support the move.

Nearly three-fourths of Americans believe that the federal government should not provide payments to black Americans whose ancestors were slaves to compensate for the toll of slavery. Only 26% of Americans are in favor of reparations.

MORE: Trump says admin 'will not even consider' renaming bases named after Confederate leaders, after Army signals openness

Beyond these topline divisions over handling the scars of America’s past, there are stark racial divides. Black Americans are far more likely to support renaming Confederate bases and reparations than both white Americans and Hispanics.

In the new poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, two-thirds of Black Americans favor renaming Confederate bases, which is more than double the support among white Americans (32%), and is 13-points higher than the approval among Hispanics (54%).



Do you think the federal government should or should not pay money to black Americans whose ancestors were slaves as compensation for that slavery?Do you think the federal government should or should not pay money to black Americans whose ancestors were slaves as compensation for that slavery?ABC News/Ipsos Poll

Black Americans (72%) are also more than five times as likely to back reparations than whites (14%) and over twice as likely than Hispanics (34%).

Although we have seen large changes in opinion on a wide variety of issues revolving around race in America, there has been only a slight change in attitudes about reparations over the last 20 years. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from June 1997 found that only 19% of Americans backed providing black Americans whose ancestors were slaves with payments, while 77% opposed it.

In 1997, 65% of blacks and a meager 10% of whites supported reparations, a split that is about the same as this week’s poll.

The survey also finds sharp partisan divisions over both giving military bases new names and paying reparations to descendants of slaves: 71% of Democrats support changing the names of bases compared to only 13% of Republicans and 40% of independents.

Democrats are more divided in their support for reparations than they are in their approval of renaming bases, with only 54% backing the federal government paying black Americans compensation for slavery, while 45% oppose. Meanwhile, Republicans (94%) and independents (82%) are overwhelming against such a decision.
This week, another poll, asking a similar question on military bases, was released by Quinnipiac, showed a slightly different result.

In the Quinnipiac poll, voters were split, 47%-47%, over renaming Confederate bases. The Quinnipiac poll had slightly more Democrats in its poll. The difference in attitudes on changing the names of bases in the two polls is a function of differences in the attitudes of independents. Independents were more likely to support renaming Confederate bases in the Quinnipiac poll and slightly more likely to oppose it in the ABC News/Ipsos poll. Partisans had similar attitudes in the two polls.
Younger Americans, too, are more likely to back renaming military bases than their older counterparts, with 55% of 18-29-year-olds supporting the move, compared to 32% among those over the age of 65.

Americans over the age of 65 are overwhelmingly against such a change, with 65% opposing renaming military sites.

MORE: Senators move to change names of military bases, set stage for showdown with Trump

The poll comes as the country marks the anniversary of Juneteenth, which commemorates when the last people who were still enslaved were told they were freed, more than two years after slavery ended, and amid ongoing unrest across the country over racial injustice, further renewed by the killing of Rayshard Brooks at the hands of a white police officer in Atlanta.

It also comes the same week that a coalition of some 50 progressive groups, including some associated with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pushed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to adopt a more progressive approach to reforming policing and criminal justice.

"You cannot win the election without the enthusiastic support of Black voters, and how you act in this moment of crisis will play a big role in determining how Black voters – and all voters concerned with racial justice – respond to your candidacy," the letter to Biden from the organizations read.

The letter also calls on Biden to support policies outlined by The Movement for Black Lives, which includes supporting reparations for black Americans, something Biden has hesitated to embrace. He, instead, says he backs studying the feasibility of reparations.

Last week, President Donald Trump said his administration "will not even consider" renaming military bases originally named after Confederate leaders, a day after the Army issued a statement saying top military leaders were "open" to the discussion.




Do you support or oppose banning the use of chokeholds by police officers?Do you support or oppose banning the use of chokeholds by police officers?ABC News/Ipsos Poll
The only issue in the poll that finds near-universal approval across racial and political lines is banning the use of chokeholds by police officers, with majorities of black Americans (71%), white Americans (63%), Hispanics (56%), Democrats (71%), Republicans (51%), and independents (63%) all backing such a step. And overall, 63% of Americans support banning chokeholds.
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs‘ KnowledgePanel® June 17-18, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 727 adults, with oversamples of black and Hispanic respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.1 points, including the design effect. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.

Approval of Trump's coronavirus response underwater, as he returns to campaign trail: POLL
KENDALL KARSON, ABC News•June 21, 2020

A solid majority of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus, even as he returned to the campaign trail with a rally Saturday night that marked his first major event since the pandemic began, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday finds.

His approval now stands at 41%, similar to the 39% approval rating he received the last time the question was asked in a poll two weeks ago. Trump's disapproval now stands at 58%, compared to 60% last time.

MORE: 6 Trump campaign staffers test positive for COVID-19 ahead of Tulsa rally

For more than two months, Trump's approval for his response to the outbreak has been underwater, with disapproval consistently hovering in a narrow band from 57% to 60% since the end of April.

Since ABC News/Ipsos began polling on the coronavirus in mid-March, Trump's approval has mostly held steady, except for one week in March, when it was above water, at 55%, and his disapproval landed at 43%. The new poll was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel.

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19)? (ABC News/Ipsos Poll)
Despite the low marks, the president moved forward with his first in-person rally since March, which he said he viewed as the relaunch of his reelection campaign that was ground to a halt by the deadly virus.

Throughout the rally inside the BOK Center, where social distancing guidelines were not followed, Trump frequently brought up the coronavirus, giving himself high praise for his administration's response to the crisis.

"COVID-19," Trump said, "that name gets further and further away from China as opposed to calling it the Chinese virus. And despite the fact that we -- I have done a phenomenal job with it. ... We saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and all we do is get hit on like we're terrible."

MORE: Trump refers to COVID as 'Chinese virus,' 'kung flu' at Tulsa rally

In the United States, confirmed cases of the virus top 2.2 million and the death toll stands at nearly 120,000.

Trump's decision to hold a massive rally in Oklahoma came as multiple health officials warn that a packed event in an indoor arena that seats up to 19,000 could supercharge the spread of the coronavirus in an area that's already seeing cases on the rise.

MORE: Divisions emerge on renaming military bases, reparations amid unrest: POLL

The daily number of coronavirus cases statewide have increased over the last week, while the number of tests conducted each day has declined slightly, according to the state's health department. The number of daily cases in the Tulsa area has also trended upward over the past two weeks, while the rate of testing has remained about the same, according to Tulsa County's health department.

On the same day of the rally, Tulsa County reported it's highest one-day increase in coronavirus cases so far, with 136 new positive cases.

The campaign required supporters to sign a waiver saying they assume all risks if they are exposed to COVID-19 at the event, an effort to prevent any lawsuits.
PHOTO: President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he enters his first re-election campaign rally in several months in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 20, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters)More

Around the perimeter of the event, health care workers in personal protective equipment were on hand to check the temperatures of the attendees with hand scanners and kiosk temperature scanners before they entered the arena. There were also stations filled with face masks and hand sanitizer for the attendees.

The new survey comes just days after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast, that his advice for people who want to attend Trump's rallies is the same for anti-Trump protestors - any large group is "a danger" and "risky." For anyone who insists on attending, he said, they should wear a mask.

MORE: Indoors, yelling and packed crowds: Experts sound alarm ahead of Trump's Tulsa rally amid coronavirus

Fauci, who said he personally would not attend the rally, has long been the leading scientific voice on the nation's response to the coronavirus, and a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which is charged with overseeing the administration's efforts to control and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

But in recent weeks, the task force has faded in prominence, and earlier this week, Fauci told NPR's 1A program that he last spoke to Trump "two weeks ago."

PHOTO: President Donald Trump supporters cheer Eric Trump, the son of President Donald Trump, not pictured, before a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., June 20, 2020. (Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo)

Less than five months until the November general election, Trump's approval for his management of the coronavirus, which is likely to be a mainstay issue of the election, continues to fall sharply along partisan lines.

Among Democrats, only 6% approve of the president's stewardship through the crisis, with an overwhelming 94% disapproving. Republicans, on the other hand, are a near mirror image, with 90% approving of the president's coronavirus response, and 10% disapproving.

MORE: Fauci tells ABC's 'Powerhouse Politics' that attending rallies, protests is 'risky'

Independents again trace the attitudes of the country, with 59% disapproving and 40% approving.

Trump is also struggling more with women than men on this issue, with 62% of female respondents disapproving of his handling of the pandemic, compared to 54% of men. Just over one-third of women approve of the president's leadership, compared to 46% of men.

Racial groups, too, show division. White Americans (50%) are nearly four times as likely as black Americans (13%) and twice as likely as Hispanics (25%) to approve of Trump's coronavirus response. Overwhelming majorities of black Americans (85%) and Hispanics (74%) disapprove of the president on this issue, with 49% of white Americans feeling the same.

This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs' KnowledgePanel® June 17-18, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 727 adults, with oversamples of black and Hispanic respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.1 points, including the design effect. See the poll's topline results and details on the methodology here.

ABC News' Will Steakin and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

Approval of Trump's coronavirus response underwater, as he returns to campaign trail: POLL originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS FAKE OUT TRUMP
TikTok users, K-pop fans credited with helping to sabotage Trump rally 
AND MANAGING TO KEEP IT SECRET
The prank proved successful, as Forbes reported attendance was just under 6,200.

NOT THE 400LB GUY ON A COMPUTER

IN HIS MOM'S BASEMENT AS TRUMP ONCE SAID

RATHER GEN Z ON THEIR SMARTPHONES

Reuters•June 21, 2020 By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters) - TikTok users and Korean pop music fans are being partly credited for inflating attendance expectations at a less-than-full arena at President Donald Trump's first political rally in months, held in Tulsa on Saturday.

Social media users on different platforms, including the popular video-sharing app TikTok, have claimed in posts and videos that they registered for free tickets to the rally as a prank, with no intention of going.

Prior to the event, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale said there had been more than one million ticket requests for the event. However, the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena had many empty seats and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence canceled speeches to an expected "overflow" crowd.

The Trump campaign said that the entry was 'first-come-first-served' and that no one was issued an actual ticket.

"Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they're being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number," said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh in a statement to Reuters. "But we thank them for their contact information."

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, responded to a tweet by Parscale blaming the media for discouraging attendees and cited bad behavior by demonstrators outside.

"Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID," she tweeted on Saturday. "KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too," she added.

"My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens," tweeted former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt.

CNN reported on Tuesday that a TikTok video posted by Mary Jo Laupp, a user who uses the hashtag #TikTokGrandma, was helping lead the charge. The video now has more than 700,000 likes.

There were some shouting matches and scuffles outside the event between around 30 Black Lives Matter demonstrators and some Trump supporters waiting to enter. A Reuters reporter saw no sign any Trump supporters were prevented from entering the arena or overflow area.

Trump had brushed aside criticism for his decision to hold the in Tulsa, the site of the country's bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence against Black Americans some 100 years ago.

TikTokers and K-Pop Stans Say They Trolled President Trump's Campaign Rally in Tulsa

They reserved seats for the event and didn't show up.

Jun 21, 2020

President Trump's first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic had far less of a turnout than expected, and a group of TikTok teens and K-Pop stans may have been responsible for the shrunken crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Last week, POTUS bragged on Twitter that nearly one million people requested tickets for Saturday night's rally, but that the arena could only hold 19,000 fans, which lead many to believe the event would be at capacity. However, it appears hundreds of thousands of those RSVP requests were made by TikTokers and fans of Korean pop music who had no intention of showing up, according to The New York Times.



In the days leading up the event, TikTok users made videos encouraging their followers to reserve seats and not attend in an effort to inflate expectations.

"Guys, Donald Trump is having a rally next week and it's free. All you have to do is give your phone number and you can get two tickets, so I got two tickets. But I totally forgot that I have to pick every individual piece of lint off of my room floor and sort them by size, so I can't make it," one TikToker sarcastically said in a clip prior to the rally.

"Oh, well. I already got the tickets and I accidentally just verified it, too. So that means there's going to be at least two empty spots."

RELATED: George Clooney Donates $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative on President Trump's Behalf

A thread of some of the TikTokers/Zoomers who reserved tickets to Trump’s rally to shrink the crowd today in Oklahoma 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/ITz4NAbeTD
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

pic.twitter.com/hgg2JSOuz4
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

pic.twitter.com/tdXrp3K2al
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

The prank proved successful, as Forbes reported attendance was just under 6,200.

Following the event, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale blamed the low turnout on "radical protestors" who blocked supporters from entering the arena.

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

U.S. Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez quickly refuted Parscale's claim, and responded: "Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID."

She added, "Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud." Looks like Trump officially got trolled.

Ocasio-Cortez thanks ‘TikTok teens’ who ‘tricked’ Trump campaign

Published: June 21, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

The upper section of the arena is seen partially empty as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Tulsa, Oklahoma. GETTY

Kids these days.

Donald Trump’s big campaign rally in Tulsa wasn’t quite as big as promised, with the man leading the president’s re-election efforts explaining away the no-shows.

“Radical protestors, fueled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage, interfered with @realDonaldTrump supporters at the rally,” Brad Parscale explained. “They even blocked access to the metal detectors, preventing people from entering.”

Trump, for his part, took to the stage and backed that assessment, saying the media’s urging of his supporters not to attend on top of the protesters outside kept the crowds away.

“We begin our campaign,” Trump said. “The silent majority is stronger than ever before.”

But New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t buying it, and she shared her appreciation with those she believes duped the Trump administration:

Ocasio-Cortz was referring to the teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans who were reportedly behind the “millions” of ticket requests ahead of the event. After the Trump campaign’s official account posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets earlier this month, the youngsters decided to prank the administration by pushing followers to sign up but not show.

If true, it sure seemed to work:

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, told the New York Times. “K-pop Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Daniel, who took part in the prank, said most of the people deleted the evidence after the first day so that the Trump campaign wouldn’t catch wind.

“These kids are smart and they thought of everything,” he said.

Erin Hoffman was one of those “kids,” apparently.

“Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” she told the Times. “He doesn’t deserve the platform he has been given.” Hoffman also persuaded her parents to reserve two tickets.

With all the buzz over the prank, #TikTokTeens was trending on Twitter TWTR, -1.82% Sunday:

Zoomers Boast They Sabotaged Trump Rally Turnout With Fake Reservations

Mary Papenfuss HuffPost•June 21, 2020

Members of Generation Z are claiming on social media that the “Zoomers” are at least partially responsible for a number of empty seats at President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night.

As part of a campaign organized on social media, they reserved masses of tickets to the rally that they had no intention of using.

The rally-busting movement involved young TikTok users and K-Pop fans around the nation, according to the prank participants who posted their (unused) ticket confirmations or commented (and celebrated) online after the rally.
@eggzabeth

##greenscreenvideo IT WORKED ✨🤪🧚🏼‍♀️ ##trump ##trumprally♬ original sound - eggzabeth
@emilysdcp

GO REGISTER! And don’t forget to not show up! Take those seats away! ##trump ##trump2020 ##2020 ##trumprally ##republican ##tulsa JK ##blm ##lgbt ##voteblue♬ original sound - vividdreamergirl
@sawyermcd

Tik tok really did that! A million wasted tickets hahahah ##trumpresign ##fyp ##blm ##joebiden ##trumprally ##tulsa ##okboomer ##bye ##Summer2020 ##xyzbca ##fypp♬ yeeeee - cej2.11

Political strategist Steve Schmidt boasted on Twitter that his daughter and her friends in Park City, Utah, signed up for “hundreds” of free tickets to the rally they had absolutely no intention of attending. “You have been rolled by America’s teens,” Schmidt mocked Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale in a tweet.

My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens. @realDonaldTrump you have been failed by your team. You have been deserted by your faithful. No one likes to root for the losing team. @ProjectLincoln https://t.co/VM5elZ57Qp
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020

This is what happened tonight. I’m dead serious when I say this. The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump. All across America teens ordered tickets to this event. The fools on the campaign bragged about a million tickets. lol. @ProjectLincoln.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020

Others responded to Schmidt’s tweets, saying they or their kids had also made fake ticket reservations.

Omg my 13 year old told me about teens getting tickets to keep the stands empty. Man do I love this generation! I am finally getting optimistic about our future.
— BeMerrie (@F2FNetwork) June 20, 2020


My 3 cats each have tickets 👍🏻
— ℍ𝕆𝕃𝕐 𝕊ℂℍℕ𝕀𝕂𝔼𝕊 🏳️‍🌈 (@aWomanResisting) June 20, 2020

The movement appears to have been launched by Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old teacher from Iowa, who had worked on Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, CNN reported. She explained her idea in a TikTok video that had 700,000 likes by late Saturday.

@maryjolaupp
Did you know you can make sure there are empty seats at Trump’s rally? ##BLM.♬ original sound - maryjolaupp




On Saturday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted at Parscale, saying he got “ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign” with fake reservations. The congresswoman also hailed “K-Pop allies,” saying: “We see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice, too.”

She added a “shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud.”

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too 😌
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

Trump’s campaign had heard of the plot, but may have misjudged its reach. Erin Perrine, principle deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, told CNN last week it was no big concern.

“Leftists do this all the time,” she said. “They think if they sign up for tickets that will leave empty seats. Not the case at all. Always way more ticket requests than seats available at a rally. All they are doing is giving us access to their contact information.”

Usually, tickets aren’t required for campaign rallies, the campaign told CNN. But the situation was different for the Tulsa event, because reservations included a legal disclaimer that participants wouldn’t sue Trump or the campaign if they contracted COVID-19 at the rally. And without a reservation, there would be no legal waiver for attendees to sign beforehand.

When videos from the event showed huge swathes of empty blue seats at the BOK Center where Trump spoke, which holds 19,000 people, TikTok users were thrilled.



“What did you guys do?” a stunned Laupp asked in a video Saturday after seeing the empty seats. “Like, seriously? Are you kidding me right now?”
@maryjolaupp

##TikTokGrandma ##SpeakUp THANK YOU!!!!!♬ original sound - maryjolaupp
@jilljillsiwa

Reply to @mopedrespecter gen Z and the Kpop army killed it... let’s keep it up! ##genz ##kpop ##ARMY ##generationz ##trumprally ##tulsa ##aoc ##vote ##voteblue♬ We Did It! - Dora The Explorer
@baby.witch.hours

##duet with @orphan_since2017 Awe I’m totally sooo sad 😔😔 ##trump ##makeamericagreatagain ##jkfucktrump ##dumptrump ##trump2020 ##trumprally ##fyp ##foryoupa♬ DONT DO THIS ALL IT DOES IS HELP TRUMP SORRY - orphan_since2017
@simonechalamet

##greenscreen speaks for itself dunnit ##fyp ##trump ##trumprally ##tulsa♬ original sound - emann_hh
@whitepapercupp

I think I’m gonna be sick on this day 😔✋✨ google his Tulsa rally and book your tickets! ##maga ##trump2020 ##donaldtrump ##allbirthdaysmatter♬ Macarena - Bass Bumpers Remix Radio Edit - Los Del Rio

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sunk Trump Rally

Taylor Lorenz, Kellen Browning and Sheera Frenkel,
The New York Times•June 21, 2020

A Trump supporter sits alone in the top sections of seating at the president's Tulsa rally. (Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, but it failed to deliver. Hundreds of teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans say they’re at least partially responsible.

Brad Parscale, the chairman of Trump’s reelection campaign, posted on Twitter on Monday that the campaign had fielded more than 1 million ticket requests, but reporters at the event noted the attendance was lower than expected. The campaign also canceled planned events outside the rally for an anticipated overflow crowd that did not materialize.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said protesters stopped supporters from entering the rally, held at the BOK Center, which has a 19,000-seat capacity. Reporters present said there were few protests.

TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Trump’s campaign rally as a prank. After the Trump campaign’s official account @TeamTrump posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones June 11, K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.

The trend quickly spread on TikTok, where videos with millions of views instructed viewers to do the same, as CNN reported Tuesday. “Oh no. I signed up for a Trump rally, and I can’t go,” one woman joked, along with a fake cough, in a TikTok posted June 15.

Thousands of other users posted similar tweets and videos to TikTok that racked up millions of views. Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” said YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, who participated in the social media campaign. “K-pop, Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Many users deleted their posts after 24 to 48 hours in order to conceal their plan and keep it from spreading into the mainstream internet. “The majority of people who made them deleted them after the first day because we didn’t want the Trump campaign to catch wind,” Daniel said. “These kids are smart, and they thought of everything.”

Twitter users Saturday night were quick to declare the social media campaign’s victory. “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted in response to Parscale, who had tweeted that “radical protestors” had “interfered” with attendance.

Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist, added, “The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump.”

Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old from Fort Dodge, Iowa, said she had been watching Black TikTok users express their frustration about Trump hosting his rally on Juneteenth, the holiday on June 19. (The rally was later moved to June 20.) She “vented” her own anger in a late-night TikTok video June 11 — and provided a call to action.

“I recommend all of those of us that want to see this 19,000-seat auditorium barely filled or completely empty go reserve tickets now and leave him standing there alone on the stage,” Laupp said in the video.

When she checked her phone the next morning, Laupp said, the video was starting to go viral. It has more than 700,000 likes, she added, and more than 2 million views.

She said she believed that at least 17,000 tickets were accounted for based on comments she received on her TikTok videos but added that people reaching out to her said tens of thousands more had been reserved.

Laupp said she was “overwhelmed” and “stunned” by the possibility that she and the effort she helped inspire might have contributed to the low rally attendance.

“There are teenagers in this country who participated in this little no-show protest, who believe that they can have an impact in their country in the political system even though they’re not old enough to vote right now,” she said.

The effort to deprive Trump of a large crowd spread from Twitter and TikTok across multiple social media platforms, including Instagram and Snapchat.

Erin Hoffman, an 18-year-old from upstate New York, said she heard from a friend on Instagram about the social media campaign. She then spread it herself via her Snapchat story and said friends who saw her post told her they were reserving tickets.

“Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” said Hoffman, who reserved two tickets herself and persuaded one of her parents to nab two more. “He doesn’t deserve the platform he has been given.”

Laupp said that many of the people who shared her video added commentary encouraging people to procure the tickets with fake names and phone numbers. In the comment section under her own video, TikTok users exchanged advice on how to acquire a Google Voice number or another internet-connected phone line.

“We all know the Trump campaign feeds on data; they are constantly mining these rallies for data,” said Laupp, who worked on several rallies for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. “Feeding them false data was a bonus. The data they think they have, the data they are collecting from this rally, isn’t accurate.”

She added that several people who took part in her campaign complained that once they signed up for the rally with their real phone numbers, they couldn’t get the Trump campaign to stop texting them and sending them messages.

Mary Garcia, a 19-year-old student from California, said that she used a Google Voice number to sign up for the rally but that two of her friends who also signed up used their real numbers and had been inundated with texts from the Trump campaign.

Garcia said she decided to sign up on a whim after seeing Laupp’s video, but after she saw the Trump campaign boasting about its record-setting ticket numbers she regretted what she had done.

“I feel like it doesn’t even matter if the rally is full or not,” Garcia said. “They are going to boast about a million tickets being registered, and then they’ll just lie or whatever about how big the audience was.”

K-pop stans have been getting increasingly involved in American politics in recent months. After the Trump campaign solicited messages for the president’s birthday June 8, K-pop stans submitted a stream of prank messages. And earlier in June, when the Dallas Police Department asked citizens to submit videos of suspicious or illegal activity through a dedicated app, K-pop Twitter claimed credit for crashing the app by uploading thousands of “fancam” videos.

They also reclaimed the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag in May by spamming it with endless K-pop videos in hopes to make it harder for white supremacists and sympathizers to find one another and communicate their messaging.

Whether or not the prank to call in false tickets was the reason for the empty upper rafters at Trump’s rally, teenagers online celebrated. On Twitter, several accounts tweeted, “best senior prank ever.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company

Tesla Tells Employees On Juneteenth That Juneteenth Is A Holiday, But They Still Have To Use PTO

Musk: "It does require use of a paid-time-off day, which is true of many other holidays."

Ryan MacBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on June 19, 2020



On Friday morning, Tesla’s US employees received an email from Valerie Workman, the company’s head of North American human resources. She wrote that “Tesla fully supports Juneteenth for any US employee that wants to take the day off to celebrate.”

That was followed by another clarifying email from Tesla’s HR: “This is an unpaid PTO and excused absence.”



Provided to BuzzFeed News

Tesla workers were confused by the message. Some were already at work by the time they received the first email, and one, who spoke with BuzzFeed News, felt it was “pointless.” The company was recognizing Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the liberation of slaves in the United States, while telling workers they either had to take a vacation day or take the day off and not be paid.

With a national awakening to the need for racial justice following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans, corporations have taken different approaches to voice their support. Some have declared “Black Lives Matter” and committed funds and resources, while others have moved to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday.

Tesla and SpaceX, both helmed by billionaire Elon Musk, have taken a different approach.

“Juneteenth is henceforth considered a US holiday at Tesla & SpaceX,” he tweeted on Friday at 10:06 am in Los Angeles, before following that up with a reply. “It does require use of a paid-time-off day, which is true of many other holidays.”

Tesla and Musk did not respond to an email request for comment.


Elon Musk@elonmusk
@PPathole It does require use of a paid-time-off day, which is true of many other holidays05:42 PM - 19 Jun 2020
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Sources who provided or confirmed the emails to BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity fearing retribution, described the messages as performative. Operations continued at Tesla’s Fremont factory, the only non-unionized, US-owned car manufacturing facility in the country, and while workers were given the option to leave, they would not be paid if they did not use a vacation or paid time off day.

The only difference, the sources said, was that employees would not be penalized for not working. Typically, workers with unexcused absences at the factory accumulate penalties when they do not show up for their shifts. Enough penalties and a worker can be fired.

Tesla’s Fremont has been back in operation since May, after Musk, a vocal skeptic of the novel coronavirus pandemic, defied a shelter-in-place order from Alameda County and reopened it amid an on-going outbreak. In defying officials, Musk and Tesla filed a lawsuit against the county, which then gave the company concessions that allowed it to manufacture cars as other local businesses remained shuttered.

Tesla factory workers who previously spoke with BuzzFeed News said that while the company has implemented social distancing and mask policies, they are not being enforced or followed at the facility. There have been confirmed COVID-19 cases at some Tesla locations.


Ryan Mac 🙃@RMac18
Tesla’s head of US HR sent an email to employees this morning saying they could take Juneteenth off. Some employees were already at work by the time they received the email. Then she clarified that it’s unpaid time off.03:54 PM - 19 Jun 2020
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On Friday, some workers were frustrated by the announcement. They were not informed about the company's position on Juneteenth until Friday morning and some had traveled long distances to arrive for their regularly scheduled shifts only to see the email from Workman.

The Verge also reported that some employees had been planning a Juneteenth rally at the factory for Friday.

One former SpaceX employee, who spoke to BuzzFeed News anonymously, explained that while the company provided a standard set of holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July, it also gave employees floating holidays to use at their discretion. That allowed workers to take days off like Good Friday, which were not company-wide holidays.

Still, the former SpaceX employee said, Musk doesn’t deserve the credit he’s getting on Twitter.

“He’s claiming to give an extra day off and then immediately walked it back as requiring PTO to take off,” he said. “Seems like a totally empty gesture.”

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Ryan Mac is a senior tech reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.