No social distancing at Trump’s campaign.

President Donald Trump’s campaign directed the removal of thousands of “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” stickers from seats in the Bank of Oklahoma Center in the hours before the President’s much anticipated Tulsa rally, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

As part of the BOK Center’s safety plan for the June 20 rally, arena management had purchased 12,000 do-not-sit stickers with the intention of keeping people apart by leaving open seats between attendees, according to the Post.

Then on the day of the rally, when event staff had already placed the stickers on nearly every other seat in the 19,000-seat arena, the Trump campaign told event management to stop and then began removing the stickers, according to a person familiar with the event who spoke to the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, didn’t address the sticker removal incident but instead touted the health precautions that were taken for the event in a statement to CNN.

“The rally was in full compliance with local requirements. In addition, every rally attendee received a temperature check prior to admission, was given a face mask, and provided ample access to hand sanitizer,” Murtaugh said Saturday.

The stickers were removed at the arena ahead of the event, according to pool reporters, who noticed that the stickers that once appeared on the seats hours before were nearly all gone by mid-afternoon on Saturday. The stickers were removed before the public was allowed into the arena, according to pool reports.

By the time Trump took the stage in the arena, attendees were seen not adhering to social distancing guidelines, instead being clustered together with no empty seats between one another. No stickers can be seen on the seats either.

In the end, fewer than 6,200 people attended the rally that was meant to signal Trump’s return to the campaign trail. 

Neither Trump nor the White House asked that the stickers be removed, said a senior White House official to the Washington Post.

Updated by Sirsha Gupta

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