Trump hits out at protesters, calls them ‘thugs’
WASHINGTON/ KENOSHA: US President Donald Trump lashed out at anti-racism protesters on Friday, calling them “thugs” at his first election rally after the Republican National Convention (RNC).
Trump has used this word for protesters before, along with a string of others - calling them “anarchists”, “agitators”, and “criminals” in his RNC speech as he has sought to portray them as manifestations of the kind of lawlessness and chaos that will come to the US if Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, wins the election.
“The thugs outside,” Trump told a rally in New Hampshire, referring to protesters who had mobbed Republican Senator Rand Paul as he left the White House on Thursday night after the president’s acceptance speech. “They walked out to a bunch of thugs. And that wasn’t... friendly protesters, they were thugs.”
Trump broke his silence on the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday, the day before the start of the Republican convention. “It was not a good sight. I did not like the sight of it,” he told reporters, when asked about the episode. He said he will be getting a report on it soon.
BLAKE’S FAMILY TO LEAD KENOSHA RALLY
Family members of Blake, who is now in a paralysed state, were expected to lead a march later on Saturday to call for an end to police violence.
Event organisers said the demonstration would include a march to the Kenosha County Courthouse and speeches by members of Blake’s family, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, US Representative Gwen Moore and other community leaders.
“We are heartbroken and enraged, but we are steadfast in our demand for justice,” Tanya Mclean, a Blake family friend who helped organise the event, said in a statement.
AN ‘OPERATIONAL MISTAKE’: FACEBOOK
Facebook made an “operational mistake” in not acting sooner to remove a page for a militia group that posted a call to arms in Kenosha, the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said.
The social media company said on Wednesday it had removed the page for the Kenosha Guard, and an event listing there for Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property as it violated the company’s policy against “militia organisations”.
Facebook’s action came after two people were shot and killed during protests in the town on Tuesday night, part of three nights of civil unrest that followed the shooting by a white police officer that left Blake paralysed.