Trump visits Rushmore, bemoans racial protests
KEYSTONE, United States: US President Donald Trump bemoaned protests demanding racial justice as “violent mayhem” on Friday (Saturday in Manila), but said little about an alarming resurgence of coronavirus cases as he attended a crowded, fireworks-studded Independence Day celebration beneath majestic Mount Rushmore.
Trump, under fire for his response to America’s spiraling coronavirus caseload four months before the presidential election, spoke on the eve of July 4th celebrations before thousands of closely packed people, many of whom chanted “Four more years;” few of whom were wearing masks.
In the shadow of four notable predecessors — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, whose likenesses are carved into a granite cliff in South Dakota’s Black Hills — the president called on supporters to defend America’s “integrity.”
He accused protesters calling for racial justice of “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.”
“The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities... is the predictable results of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism and other cultural institutions,” he said.
The US has been engulfed by a once-in-a-generation reckoning on racism and police brutality since George Floyd, an African American man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25.
That has included a rethink of how America venerates symbols of the pro-slavery Civil War South, from removing statues of Confederate generals to retiring the Mississippi state flag, which featured the Confederate emblem.
Trump, who has also been criticized for his response to the protests, promised that Mount Rushmore would never be defaced, and that he would never abolish the police or the right to bear arms.
‘Safe and smart’
Trump also thanked, albeit briefly, those “working tirelessly to kill the virus” during his comments on Friday.
But otherwise he has had little to say about the shocking increase in US virus cases. On Friday a record 57,000 new infections were confirmed.
The pandemic has claimed nearly 130,000 American lives, and the recent resurgence “puts the entire country at risk,” top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has said.
The surge, especially in the south and west of the country, has cast a pall over Independence Day and seen US residents blacklisted by Britain and Europe, who have opened their borders to others.
US testing has risen sharply, but health experts say it still lags on a per-capita basis behind many other countries and does not fully explain the case rise. They also note that deaths tend to increase a few weeks after cases rise.
Vice President Mike Pence postponed a trip to Arizona this week after members of his Secret Service detail reportedly showed signs of coronavirus infection, and he and other Republican leaders have belatedly begun emphasizing the importance of wearing masks.