President Donald Trump, who some say almost declared martial law to score political points in his latest speech, also held a bible at St. John’s Episcopal Church that he did not read or quote after days of silence and not addressing the unrest around the country.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had a conference call with many governors, where he tackled the riots and protests taking place all over America.
After the killing of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis officers, Americans of all backgrounds have been taking to the streets to call for the end of racism and police brutality.
During a call on Monday, Trump, who was reportedly hiding in a bunker in the White House before a Rose Garden speech tonight, said the governors were weak and demanded that they use force to dominate the protesters.
The angry former reality TV star told the Democratic and Republican leaders that they “have to get much tougher” because “most of you are weak.”
During the conference call, Trump had this to say: “What happened in the state of Minnesota … They took over the police department. The police were running down the street with sirens blazing, the rest of them running, it was on-camera … I have never seen anything like it, and the whole world was laughing … All of a sudden and I said you got to use the National Guard, and they didn’t work at first, and then they did. I don’t know what it was, it was the third night, one night, those guys walked through that stuff like it was butter. They walked right through, and they haven’t had any problems. They know they’re not going to go there, they’re going to go to some other place.”
He went on to reveal: “Once you go down and you dominate it, you take the worst place, and you made it— they didn’t even cover it last night … because you dominated, you dominated. What happens in New York, I have to tell you, I lived in Manhattan, what’s going on in Manhattan? I have no idea. New York’s finest … I don’t know what’s happening in Manhattan, but it’s terrible. Because it’s Manhattan, it gets a lot of press. So they really spend a lot of time on it. But New York is going to have to have to toughen up, and we’ll send you National Guard if you want. You have the largest police force in the country, 40,000 people are on the staff. What’s going on in New York is terrible, it’s terrible. All the places. What happened last night in Los Angeles … is terrible. Those dominations, you have to dominate them.”
Illinois Gov. Jay “J.B.” Pritzker did not hold back and fired back at Trump by saying: “And I need to say that people are feeling real pain out there, and we’ve got to have national leadership in calling for calm and making sure that we’re addressing the concerns of legitimate peaceful protestors.”
Another Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, issued a statement where she said that Trump’s remarks were disturbing and added: “Instead of offering support or leadership to bring down the temperature at protests, President Trump told governors to ‘put it down,’ or we would be ‘overridden. He said governors should ‘dominate’ protesters, ‘or you’ll look like a bunch of jerks.'”
She went on to say: “The president repeatedly and viciously attacked governors, who are doing everything they can to keep the peace while fighting a once-in-a-generation global pandemic.”
The protests around the nation have overshadowed the COVID-19 pandemic.
