Did Trump threaten rally no-shows with powerful charges? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A claim on social media alleges to show a tweet by President Trump threatening “powerful charges” to anyone who ordered a ticket to his recent Tulsa rally in Oklahoma but did not attend.

FALSE

An example of the claim is below.

Anyone who ordered a ticket to my rally and didn’t attend should be arrested and face very powerful charges #treason

On Saturday 20th June 2020, Trump started his re-election campaign with a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, despite concerns surrounding the on-going coronavirus pandemic. While the rally was touted to be a sell-out (the Trump administration claimed over 1 million people had expressed interest in attending) the arena holding the rally was estimated to be only two thirds full, with many empty seats visible.

Many would subsequently claim that the empty seats were because of an online campaign encouraging people to order tickets to the rally and not show up. However this was dismissed by the Trump administration, who instead blamed negative media coverage and – without evidence – claimed attendees had been physically stopped by protestors from getting inside the venue.


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This then later led to this tweet circulating the Internet. However, the tweet is fake. Trump did not threaten people with “powerful charges” for ordering a ticket but not attending.

We searched the president’s Twitter feed as well as archives dedicated to displaying deleted tweets from well-known figures (including President Trump.) The tweet above did not appear in any.

As such, it is likely the tweet is the result of one of many “create your own tweet” tools that are freely available online and frequently used to kick start various hoaxes.

As such, we rank this claim false.

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