Can’t you just shoot them in the legs?
What Trump asked defence chief about White House BLM protesters
DONALD Trump asked if protesters demonstrating outside the White House over the death of George Floyd could be shot, a new book claims.
A memoir by then-Defence Secretary Mark Esper alleges the then-US president asked: ‘Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?’
He claims the US leader was ‘red-faced’ and ‘complaining loudly’ about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations that had broken out in May 2020 following the death of Mr Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
A month later Mr Trump ordered demonstrators to be cleared from Lafayette Square by the White House so he could walk to a nearby church and pose with a Bible for a widely condemned photo opportunity. US Park Police and National Guard troops deployed tear gas and stun grenades to move the largely peaceful protesters. It became one of the most shocking moments of the Trump administration and his critics said the incident showed his authoritarian instincts.
‘Red-faced and complaining’
Mr Esper’s account appeared to confirm previous reports of Mr Trump arguing that the military should intervene to quell the spiralling civil unrest. ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts,’ he tweeted on May 29, 2020.
An earlier book by journalist Michael Bender quoted sources saying the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, argued with Mr Trump against using the armed forces as the president demanded a stronger response.
Mr Esper publicly stated at the time that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act, a rarely-used 200-year-old law which permits troops to be actively deployed in the US.
His stance reportedly enraged Mr Trump, and the defence chief was sacked in November 2020 after less than a year in the job. News website Axios, which reported the ‘shoot them’ comments, said Mr Esper’s book had been vetted by the Pentagon and reviewed by generals and cabinet members.
In his upcoming memoir, Sacred Oath: Memoirs Of A Secretary Of Defence During Extraordinary Times, Mr Esper writes that the dysfunction in the White House was unlike anything he’d seen in politics.
He describes the moment as ‘surreal... sitting in front of the Resolute desk, inside the Oval Office, with this idea weighing heavily in the air, and the President red-faced and complaining loudly about the protests under way in Washington DC’.
He adds: ‘The good news – this wasn’t a difficult decision. The bad news – I had to figure out a way to walk Mr Trump back without creating the mess I was trying to avoid.’
Mr Trump has not commented on the claims.