President hails ‘beautiful scene’ as police used force on Floyd death protesters
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,” Mr 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.”
Mr 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.
Mr Trump did not mention Mr 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 labelling tens of millions of decent Americans as racist or bigots,” the president said.
He has largely criticised the protests that took place in cities across the United States, including Minneapolis where Mr Floyd was killed.
Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz activated its National Guard after three nights of protests and violent riots; on Thursday, Mr 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 Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican member of the Senate, is spearheading proposals in his chamber.
Mr 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
‘The Radical Left Democrats try to take away your guns’
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,” Mr Trump said. “And you always have a bad apple. No matter where you go, you have bad apples and there not too manyofthem.”
Hours after the event, Mr 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 recent days 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 honour Confederate military figures – an idea that had been under consideration at the Pentagon – and threatening a federal response to “ugly Anarchists” protesting in Seattle.