TRUMP WANTED TROOPS FOR D.C.
WASHINGTON • U.S. President Donald Trump told his advisers at one point this past week he wanted 10,000 troops to deploy to the Washington, D.C., area to halt civil unrest over the killing of a black man by Minneapolis police, according to a senior U.S. official.
The account of Trump’s demand during a heated Oval Office conversation on Monday shows how close the president may have come to fulfilling his threat to deploy active duty troops, despite opposition from Pentagon leadership.
At the meeting, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Attorney General William Barr recommended against such a deployment, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The meeting was “contentious,” the official added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has since appeared satisfied with deployments by the National Guard, the option recommended by the Pentagon and a more traditional tool for dealing with domestic crises.
Meanwhile, the rolling anti-racism movement continued for a second weekend in the U.S. and around the world, showing the depth of anger over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 after a white police officer detaining him knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Demonstrators in Rome held their fists in the air and chanted “No Justice! No Peace!” on Sunday, while in London people defied official warnings not to gather, and lay down outside the U.S. Embassy.
In Belgium, police fired tear gas and used a water cannon to disperse about a hundred protesters in a central part of Brussels with many African shops. Some protesters were arrested.
They were part of a crowd of about 10,000 who had gathered at the Palace of Justice, many wearing face masks and carrying banners with the phrase “Black Lives Matter — Belgium to Minneapolis,” “I can’t breathe” and “Stop killing black people.”
“Black Lives Matter is not only about police violence. Here, we experience discrimination that other races do not experience. For example, if we start looking for a flat to rent, we have difficulties. Regarding employment, we are disadvantaged. So it’s not only about police violence,” said 25-year-old insurance broker Randy Kayembe.
In London, where tens of thousands gathered, one banner read: “UK guilty too.”
In Italy, where several thousand people gathered in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, speakers called out racism at home, in the U.S. and elsewhere.
U.S. embassies were the focus of protests elsewhere in Europe, with more than 10,000 gathering in the Danish capital Copenhagen, hundreds in Budapest and thousands in Madrid.