Trump's conservative allies also rallied to the cause.įox News Channel host Sean Hannity said he is "a big supporter of law enforcement" but expressed outrage Wednesday, telling his audience: “The lack of training here is breathtaking.” Trump “was very upset when he saw that video," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday. Trump and his allies have been even clearer on the death of Floyd, who can be heard and seen on tape pleading that he couldn't breathe before he slowly stops talking and moving. The president has notably left open the possibility of some other explanation, saying: “it could be something that we didn’t see on tape." “You know, my heart goes out to the parents and the family and the friends," he told reporters this month. And he has even appeared to advocate for the rougher treatment of people in police custody, speaking dismissively of the police practice of shielding the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are being placed in patrol cars.īut Trump's tone has changed in recent weeks as he has repeatedly expressed dismay at footage of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man fatally shot in February in Georgia while jogging. Trump also spent years railing against NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. Trump has never apologized, telling reporters last year: “You have people on both sides of that.” In 1989, he took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, five young men of color who were wrongly convicted of a brutal assault on a jogger. Trump has a long history of injecting himself into racially sensitive cases. Trump has, however, invoked those words on several occasions to mock political rivals, even bringing his hands to his neck for dramatic effect. Video of the encounter was viewed millions of times online, and Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump has never addressed the 2014 death of Eric Garner, who was placed in a chokehold by police trying to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. “This is something that is a local matter and that’s something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities,” then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said at the time. Trump has been silent on a number of high-profile police-involved killings, including that of Stephon Clark, a black man shot by Sacramento, California, police in 2018. “So therefore he cannot be upset when people feel that it’s empty words because it is so out of character.” Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist and Trump critic who has known the president for decades. “This is the first race-tinged case that I’ve ever heard him address” as president, said the Rev.
But some activists doubt that Trump has suddenly evolved on the issue of police brutality and instead see election year political calculations. Once more likely to hew to the “blue lives matter” mantra, Trump and his allies have been questioning an officer’s conduct and calling for justice for Floyd. Twitter added a warning to Trump's tweet about the Minneapolis protests, saying it violated the platform’s rules about “glorifying violence.” Earlier this week, it applied fact checks to two of his tweets about mail-in ballots.
Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” he tweeted. Trump’s language got more aggressive as violence boiled over in Minneapolis on Thursday night. RELATED: Rioters set Minneapolis police precinct on fire as protests reignite over George Floyd death But it was a very different tone for Trump, who has often been silent in the face of white-on-black violence and has a long history of defending police. It was the kind of personal statement expected from a president in response to the disturbing video of a black man gasping for help as a white policeman pinned him to the street by the neck.
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