Tag: George Floyd

Asked why Black Americans are killed by police, Trump responds, “So are White people”

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In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, President Trump said the killing of George Floyd was “terrible” but appeared to bristle when asked why Black Americans are “still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country.”

“So are White people. So are White people. What a terrible question to ask. So are White people,” Mr. Trump told CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge at the White House. “More White people, by the way. More White people.”

Police departments are not required to report comprehensive data on police killings, but researchers have compiled statistics showing Black Americans are more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than White people. One study published in 2018 found that Black men are roughly 3.5 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than White men. Another study released in 2019 found that one in 1,000 Black men in the U.S. can expect to die at the hands of police over the course of their lifetimes.

A study by Harvard researchers published in late June found that the number of White people killed by the police between 2013 and 2017 was higher than any other demographic. But White people constitute a larger portion of the population than Black people, and the study also showed that Black people were three times more likely to be killed by law enforcement officers than White Americans.

Mr. Trump’s comments come after weeks of nationwide protests against police brutality and racial violence instigated by the death of Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed in Minneapolis after a White police officer pressed a knee to his neck for almost nine minutes. Mr. Trump said he believed Floyd’s death was “terrible” in the interview with Herridge.

Mr. Trump’s critics have accused him of overtly appealing to white supremacists through his continued defense of the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate officials. Mr. Trump said in Tuesday’s interview that he believed the debate over the flag is a freedom of speech issue.

“All I say is freedom of speech. It’s very simple. My attitude is freedom of speech. Very strong views on the Confederate flag. With me, it’s freedom of speech. Very simple. Like it, don’t like it, it’s freedom of speech,” Mr. Trump said. He previously said in 2015 that he believed the Confederate flag should be in a museum.

When asked if he would be “comfortable” with supporters displaying the Confederate flag at his campaign events, Mr. Trump demurred.

“You know, it depends on what your definition is. But I am comfortable with freedom of speech. It’s very simple,” Mr. Trump said.

Herridge pressed the president on whether he understood “why the flag is a painful symbol for many people because it’s a reminder of slavery.”

“Well, people love it and I don’t view — I know people that like the Confederate flag and they’re not thinking about slavery. I look at NASCAR — you go to NASCAR, you had those flags all over the place. They stopped it,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the decision by NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag from its events. The president has also criticized Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only Black full-time driver, saying Wallace should apologize for an incident involving a noose that was discovered in his garage stall at a speedway in Alabama.

“I just think it’s freedom of speech, whether it’s freedom of speech, whether it’s Confederate flags or Black Lives Matter or anything else you want to talk about. It’s freedom of speech,” Mr. Trump continued.

[CBS News]

Media

Trump calls use of tear gas, other force on Minneapolis protesters a ‘beautiful scene’

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President Donald Trump praised the use of tear gas and other force to disperse Minneapolis protesters, calling it a “beautiful scene” and describing the National Guard’s actions “like a knife cutting butter.”

“I’ll never forget. You saw the scene on that road … they were lined up. Man, they just walked straight. And yes, there was some tear gas and probably some other things,” Trump said in opening remarks at a roundtable on policing and race. “And the crowd dispersed and they went through. By the end of that evening, and it was a short evening, everything was fine.”

Trump’s event at a conservative, evangelical and predominantly white church in Dallas on Thursday afternoon came as the White House has yet to announce what new measures it might support in response to the protests against racial injustice that have gripped the nation since the killing of George Floyd by a police officer.

Trump did not mention Floyd by name in his remarks but suggested the work of confronting bigotry and prejudice will “go quickly and it’ll go very easily.”

“But we’ll make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racist or bigots,” the president said.

He has largely criticized the protests that took place in cities across the United States, including Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed. Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz activated its National Guard after three nights of protests and violent riots; on Thursday, Walz endorsed a package of sweeping police reforms.

In response to the national reckoning over police brutality and America’s systemic racism, Democrats unveiled sweeping police reform legislation, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican member of the Senate, is spearheading proposals in his chamber.

Trump offered some broad outlines of the steps he might embrace to answer the national demand for action. He told the roundtable participants he was working on an executive order to “encourage police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards for the use of force, including tactics for de-escalation.”

He defended police officers and slammed calls to “defund” them, saying it means people want to get rid of law enforcement. Most advocates use the term to mean the reallocation of police budgets to social services including housing and education.

“We have to respect our police. We have to take care of our police. They’re protecting us. And if they’re allowed to do their job, they’ll do a great job,” Trump said. “And you always have a bad apple. No matter where you go, you have bad apples and there not too many of them.”

Hours after the event, Trump weighed in on the debate in more provocative terms. “The Radical Left Democrats: First they try to take away your guns. Then they try to take away your police!” he tweeted.

The president’s more concrete actions in the past 24 hours appear aimed at his political base rather than the multiracial nation he governs.

That includes publicly rejecting the idea of renaming military bases whose names honor Confederate military figures — an idea that had been under consideration at the Pentagon — and threatening a federal response to “ugly Anarchists” protesting in Seattle.

Trump’s campaign released an ad Wednesday focused on his self-proclaimed credentials as a law-and-order president while seeking to cast Biden as overly supportive of those who have protested Floyd’s death.

“Antifa destroys our communities. Rioting. Looting. Yet Joe Biden kneels down,” the narrator says, as footage of Biden kneeling at a church in Wilmington, Del., is superimposed over images of violent protests.

Biden, who held an event Thursday in Philadelphia related to recovering economically from the coronavirus crisis, issued a statement ahead of Trump’s trip to Dallas questioning the president’s motives.

“For weeks we’ve seen President Trump run away from a meaningful conversation on systemic racism and police brutality,” the former vice president said. “Instead, he has further divided our country. Today’s trip to Texas won’t change any of that. President Trump is more interested in photo ops than offering a healing voice as our nation mourns.”

[Philadelphia Inquirer]

Trump makes baseless claim about man, 75, shoved by police: ‘Could be a set-up?’

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Donald Trump has claimed a 75-year-old man who was hospitalized when police shoved him to the ground at a protest in Buffalo could be “an antifa provocateur” and suggested the incident “could be a set-up”.

Two Buffalo police officers were charged with assault after video showed them pushing Martin Gugino, a slightly built septuagenarian and longtime peace activist, with enough force that he violently struck his head on the sidewalk.

The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, responded to Trump’s claims, which were offered without evidence, on Tuesday, describing the president’s behavior as “cruel and reckless”.

“The man is still in the hospital & the president is disparaging him,” Cuomo said.

The incident has been held up as an example of aggressive policing at George Floyd protests across the country and has triggered outrage across the US and overseas.

Trump, however, claimed – without offering any evidence – that Gugino may have been attempting to infiltrate police scanners. The president also seemed to suggest Gugino had exaggerated the force used by police.

“Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” Trump said on Twitter.

“75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

Gugino’s attorney, Kelly Zarcone, told WBFO News on Tuesday that the 75-year-old has been taken out of intensive care but is “still hospitalized and truly needs rest”.

“Martin has always been a peaceful protester because he cares about today’s society,” Zarcone said.

“We are at a loss to understand why the president of the United States would make such dark, dangerous and untrue accusations against him.”

Trump tagged One America News Network, a far-right conservative news network, in the tweet. Shortly before Trump’s post, OANN ran a segment which made near identical claims to Trump.

OANN, which has spread multiple conspiracy theories, cited the Conservative Treehouse, a conspiracy theory website, as its source.

The Conservative Treehouse, which is among the news sites listed in FactCheck.org’s “misinformation directory”, claimed over the weekend that Gugino “was attempting to capture the radio communications signature” when he was shoved to the ground by the police.

During the 2016 presidential election the Conservative Treehouse peddled the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton might have cancer. It has also spread conspiracy theories about student David Hogg, who survived the Parkland school shooting and has become a prominent gun control activist.

“The president is tweeting conspiracy theories about the Buffalo incident based on no evidence, no proof,” Cuomo said.

“Was the blood coming out of his head staged? Were our eyes lying to us? No.”

Cuomo added: “It’s cruel and reckless.”

The two Buffalo officers who pushed Gugino were charged with second-degree assault. All 57 members of Buffalo police’s emergency response team resigned from the team in an apparent show of support for their two colleagues.

Trump announced he would designate antifa – the term stands for anti-fascist – as a terrorist group at the end of May. Experts said the proposal is unworkable, and have said there is no actual antifa organization to be defined in such terms.

In reality, antifa relates to a broad spectrum of leftwing groups which are opposed to fascism and the far right.

Trump has often embraced conspiracy theories, most notoriously his pushing of “birtherism” – the completely false and racist theory that former president Barack Obama was not born in the US.

[The Guardian]

The Guardian]

Trump retweeted an attack on George Floyd’s character by Glenn Beck and Candace Owens

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President Donald Trump retweeted a message in which conservative provocateur Candace Owens attacked the character of George Floyd, whose death in police custody has spurred widespread anti-racism protests. 

In the message shared by the president, conservative radio host Glenn Beck interviews Owens about Floyd’s death, alongside the message: “I don’t care WHAT George Floyd did. The officer should have never treated him like that and killed him! But we still must ask: Is he a HERO? BLEXIT founder @RealCandaceO gave her thoughts: ‘The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me.'”

“This is a guy with a very long record and a very long criminal record,” Beck said.

Owens describes Floyd as a symbol of the “broken culture in black America today” and asserted that “he was not a good person.” 

Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, after a police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes. 

Friends, family, former teachers, and colleagues praised him after his death as a “gentle giant,” who moved to Minneapolis to turn his life around after a stint in prison. 

“Knowing my brother is to love my brother,” Philonise Floyd, George’s brother, told CNN.“He’s a gentle giant. He don’t hurt anybody.”

Christopher Harris, a close friend of Floyd, told The Guardian, “he was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” Harris said. “He was happy with the change he was making.”

Video of the footage, in which Floyd can be heard saying “I can’t breathe,” has spread across the internet, spurring the most widespread popular protests in the US for a generation. 

Trump is facing mounting opposition for his response to the unrest. Instead of seeking to unify the country, say critics, the president has sought to portray the protests as instigated by left-wing extremists, and has demanded that authorities “dominate” the protests. 

The president has condemned the police actions that led to Floyd’s death in remarks Friday, saying,”Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement regardless of race, color, gender or creed.

But the president was also accused of disrespecting Floyd’s memory when he claimed that Floyd was “looking down” and rejoicing in “this great day” over better than expected employment figures.

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, described Trump’s remark as “despicable. 

“George Floyd’s last words, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ echoed all across this nation and quite frankly around the world,” said Biden.

“For the president to try to put any other words in the mouth of George Floyd, I frankly think is despicable.”

[Business Insider]

Trump says he hopes George Floyd ‘is looking down’ and celebrating jobs report

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President Trump on Friday strode to a lectern in the White House Rose Garden to tout an unexpectedly good jobs report that showed the U.S. unemployment rate falling in May to 13.3 percent, as 2.7 million people who had been furloughed due to the coronavirus crisis returned to work. 

During a 45-minute, stream-of-consciousness, often rambling speech, Trump all but declared victory in his administration’s response to both the pandemic and protests over the death of George Floyd, calling the jobs report a “tremendous tribute to equality.”

The president said he hoped Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed by police in Minneapolis last week, would be looking down from heaven and approve of the job he is doing on the economy.

“Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying, ‘This is a great thing that’s happening for our country,’” Trump said. “This is a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody.”

But according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning, the unemployment rate for black Americans actually increased slightly, from 16.7 percent to 16.8 percent. Unemployment for Asian-Americans jumped from 14.5 percent to 15 percent. Overall, the number of permanent job losers — those who have not been on temporary layoffs — continued to rise, increasing by 295,000 in May to 2.3 million.

Pressed by a reporter about how the jobs report could be considered a “victory” for black Americans or Asian-Americans, or what his plan is to address systemic racism among U.S. police, the president again pointed to the reduction in unemployment.

“What’s happening in our country, and what’s been happening, is the greatest thing for race relations, for the African-American community, for the Asian-American, for the Hispanic-American community, for women, for everything,” Trump said. “Because our country is so strong, and that’s what my plan is.”

He talked at length about how surprising the job numbers were to economists and to business-show anchors. Although Friday’s figures were unexpected, there were no suggestions they were inaccurate.

Earlier in his remarks, Trump made a passing reference to the nationwide protests against police violence triggered by Floyd’s death, claiming his call to use the National Guard to quell the unrest in places like Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis had worked.

“We want to get all of this finished,” the president said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, called Trump’s invocation of Floyd’s name in his speech on the economy “despicable.”

Trump’s comments came a day after the first public memorial for Floyd was held in Minneapolis, where the Rev. Al Sharpton mocked the president’s widely-criticized church photo op.

“We cannot use Bibles as a prop,” Sharpton added. “And for those that have an agenda that are not about justice, this family will not let you use George as a prop.”

[Yahoo]

Media

Trump Calls Mattis Yet Another of His Terrible Hires

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Last evening, President Trump’s first Defense secretary, James Mattis, wrote a scathing op-ed describing his former boss as a threat to the Constitution and lacking the maturity to govern. In response to these charges, possibly the most devastating indictment any Cabinet official has ever made of a president who appointed them to office, Trump characteristically advanced a series of countercharges:

Let us examine the argument in its constituent elements. First, Trump claims to have fired Mattis. In fact, Mattis resigned his position. At the time of his retirement, Trump praised him and said he was “retiring with distinction”:

Second, Trump described Mattis as “the world’s most overrated general.” This is a very different assessment than the generous one Trump made upon Mattis’s retirement. It also raises questions as to why Trump hired Mattis in the first place. Since his career as a general entirely preceded his tenure as secretary of Defense, it would seem to be a major error by Trump that he selected the world’s most overrated general for such an important position.

This would, however, fit the pattern of Trump selecting incompetent staff for key positions, according to Trump himself.

Third, Trump undercut what is (in Trump’s branding-obsessed mind) Mattis’s most valuable attribute (the nickname “Mad Dog”) by claiming that Trump himself came up with it. In fact, the nickname can be found in innumerable news accounts going back at least 20 years.

Finally, and most curiously, Trump claims Mattis “seldom ‘brought home the bacon.’” It is not clear what bacon he was supposed to have brought home but failed, unless perhaps Trump is accusing Mattis of failing to spend enough money at Trump-owned properties, as other officials have done.

To summarize the debate between the two men: Mattis claims Trump lacks the maturity and respect for the Constitution necessary to serve as president. Trump responds that he made an enormous error in selecting his first Defense secretary, who in addition to lacking qualifications for the job, has inappropriately claimed credit for a nickname Trump devised. Notably, Trump is not contesting either of Mattis’s claims about his unfitness for office, and seems instead to be confirming them.

[New York Magazine]

Trump says he went to White House bunker for ‘inspection,’ not because of protests

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday he went to an underground bunker at the White House last week to inspect it, not because of security concerns over protests outside the executive mansion’s gates.

Trump dismissed as “false” reports that the Secret Service rushed him into the bunker Friday night as protests inspired by the death of George Floyd escalated across the street.

“I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny little short period of time,” he said during an interview with radio talk-show host Brian Kilmeade. “It was much more for an inspection. There was no problem during the day.”

Multiple news outlets – including CNN and The New York Times – reported that Trump was briefly moved to the White House’s underground bunker Friday night as a precaution while tensions escalated in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. 

Trump went down to the bunker at the behest of the Secret Service in an abundance of caution, said one official familiar with the incident, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. The official said he was only in the bunker for a short period of time.

Asked by Kilmeade if the Secret Service told him he needed to head to the bunker, Trump said, “No, they didn’t tell me that at all. They said it would be a good time to go down, take a look because maybe some time you’re going to need it.”

Trump also claimed he went to the bunker during the day before the protests escalated.

“There was never a problem,” he said. “We never had a problem. Nobody ever came close to giving us a problem. The Secret Service, it does an unbelievable job of maintaining control in the White House.”

The bunker reports preceded Trump’s much-criticized walk from the White House to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church on Monday.

Trump wanted to pay his respects to St. John’s, which suffered minor damage when it was burned by protesters Sunday, but he also wanted to leave the White House grounds to prove he was not “in the bunker” because of the protesters, said one official who requested anonymity to discuss the president’s communications strategy.

Critics hammered Trump for the St. John’s visit because police used smoke canisters, pepper spray and shields on protesters in Lafayette Park, clearing a path for the president to walk to the historic church.

Church officials protested that Trump did not call them about his plans to visit the church. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, which includes St. John’s, said she was outraged by the use of force to get people out of the way for a photo op.

Trump defended his visit to the church, saying he did not ask law enforcement officials to clear out Lafayette Park in advance.

“I didn’t say, oh, move them out – I didn’t know who was there,” he said.

Trump called his visit to St. John’s “very symbolic” and said “many religious leaders loved it.”

“Why wouldn’t they love it?” he said. “I’m standing in front of a church that went through trauma, to put it mildly.”

[USA Today]

Trump campaign demands retraction of accurate reporting on tear-gassed protesters

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Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday demanded changes to reports that Trump tear-gassed peaceful protesters so Trump could hold a photo-op at a church across the street from the White House — even though the reports were accurate.

“It’s said that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on. This tear gas lie is proof of that,” Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for Trump’s reelection campaign, said in a statement on Tuesday. “For nearly an entire day, the whole of the press corps frantically reported the ‘news’ of a tear gas attack on ‘peaceful’ protestors in Lafayette Park, with no evidence to support such claims.”

But there is ample evidence to support the claim.

The Trump campaign’s statement even links to a statement from the U.S. Park Police, which said they deployed “pepper balls” on the protesters.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Riot control agents (sometimes referred to as ‘tear gas’) are chemical compounds that temporarily make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs, and skin.”

And pepper spray, which the Park Police says was used against the protesters, is included in the CDC’s definition of those riot control agents.

The statement from the Trump campaign comes as Trump has faced a barrage of criticism for his move to attack peaceful protesters for a photo-op.

Democrats, civil rights groups, and members of the clergy who were pushed off the grounds of the church where Trump staged his stunt all condemned the move.

Meanwhile, just a handful of Republicans spoke out against Trump’s move, while a number of Senate Republicans avoided questions from MSNBC about whether they supported Trump’s actions.

A handful of House Republicans, on the other hand, celebrated Trump’s attack on peaceful demonstrators.

[American Independent]

Trump screams “SILENT MAJORITY” on Twitter

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On Tuesday morning Donald Trump sent an all-caps tweet “SILENT MAJORITY,” probably after something he watched on television.

A little history lesson, the “silent majority” was Richard Nixon’s battle cry to re-election, which he won in a landslide. It was an appeal to silent white blue collar men and women who don’t usually get involved in politics, to ignore Nixon’s many failures and corruption and join team Nixon.

It was a divide and concur strategy, create two groups, us vs. “them,” and pit them against each other.

Do you see any parallels today?

Trump says he will deploy military if state officials can’t contain protest violence

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As the sound of sirens wailed and flash bangs popped across the street, President Donald Trump announced from the Rose Garden that he would use the U.S. military to stop the riots across the county that have been sparked by the death of George Floyd.

“I am mobilizing all federal and local resources, civilian and military, to protect the rights of law abiding Americans,” Trump said in the extraordinary address, which was delivered as police fired tear gas outside to push protesters back from the White House.

“If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump said, referring to himself as “your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters.”

To activate the military to operate in the U.S., Trump would have to invoke the 213-year-old Insurrection Act, which four people familiar with the decision had told NBC News he planned to do.

The military police forces would come from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and possibly Fort Belvoir in Virginia and could arrive in Washington within hours, these people said.

Trump’s decision to invoke the act, adopted in 1807, to deploy troops comes as his frustrations mount over the protests that have followed the death of Floyd, a black man who was killed in police custody last week in Minneapolis. The people familiar with his decision said Trump was angry Sunday night at the destruction protestors caused in Washington, particularly the vandalization of national monuments.

Some of the president’s aides have been encouraging him for days to invoke the act, as he weighs options for exercising executive powers to address the crisis. The act was last invoked during the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.

Trump’s remarks came hours after he urged the nation’s governors to get “tough” with unruly demonstrators. “Most of you are weak,” he told them, according to audio of the call obtained by NBC News. “You have to dominate. If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time, they’re gonna run over you, you’re gonna look like a bunch of jerks,” the president said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the president’s plans but at a briefing with reporters Monday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany left open the possibility that the president could invoke the act.

“The Insurrection Act, it’s one of the tools available, whether the president decides to pursue that, that’s his prerogative,“ McEnany said.

Governors can ask that the federal government send active duty troops to help in cases of civil unrest like the widespread protests plaguing U.S. cities over the last several days. But, so far, no governor has requested active duty troops to assist and instead they have relied on local law enforcement and National Guard soldiers and airmen on state active duty.

Governors often prefer the National Guard forces in these cases because they can legally perform law enforcement duties in the U.S., whereas troops on active duty cannot without violating the Posse Comitatus Act, a 1878 law that prohibits the government from using military forces to act as a police force within U.S. borders.

But the president could invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops without a request from a governor. Those troops would be allowed to conduct law enforcement missions. To invoke the act, Trump would first have to issue a proclamation to “immediately order the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time,” according to the law.

In the past the Justice Department has drafted such proclamations. And according to the Congressional Research Service, the act has been invoked many times throughout U.S. history, although rarely since the 1960s civil rights era. When it was invoked in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots, the move was requested by then-California Gov. Pete Wilson, not invoked solely by President George H.W. Bush.

The Defense Department declined to comment on the possibility that the president could invoke the act.

One of Trump’s allies outside the White House, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act “if necessary” so U.S. troops can “support our local law enforcement and ensure that this violence ends tonight.”

[NBC News]

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