What happened in the state of Minnesota, we were the laughing stock all over the world.
They took over the police department, the police were running down the street, sirens
blazing, the rest of them running, it was on camera.
And then they wiped out-- you probably have to build a new one.
But I’ve never seen anything like it and the whole world was laughing.
Two days, three days later, I still see the governor, the governor I think by the call
let the next one die.
And all of the sudden, I said, you got to use the National Guard to take numbers, they
didn’t at first and then they did.
And I’ll tell you, I don’t know what it was Governor, it was the third night, fourth
night, those guys walked through that stuff like it was butter.
They walked right through and you haven’t had any problems since and I mean, they know
they’re not going to go there they’re going to go some other place.
But once you called out and you dominate it, you took the worse place and you made it—
they didn’t even cover it last night because there was so little action.
Because you dominated, you dominated.
Now, what happened to New York, I have to tell ya, I live in Manhattan, what’s going
on in Manhattan, I have no idea?
New York's finest.
They got to be allowed to do this.
I don’t know what’s happening in Manhattan, but it’s terrible.
And because it’s New York because it’s Manhattan it gets a lot of press.
So they really spent a lot of time on it.
But New York is gonna have to toughen up and we’ll send you National Guard, if you want,
you have the largest police force in the country, 40,000 people I understand, but what’s going
on in New York is terrible, it’s terrible.
Of all the places.
What went on last night in Los Angeles with the stores and the storefronts is terrible.
Total domination, you have to dominate.
This is Trump on a call with the nation’s governors in the aftermath of a weekend of
protests.
And if you’re wondering whether the president of the United States is capable of the nuance
needed in this situation, him demanding that the police go in and quote “dominate”
the protestors probably answers that question.
And his complete lack of understanding how to approach yet another crisis didn’t go
unnoticed by those on the call.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker pushed back against Trump ON THE CALL, saying this—
I've been extraordinarily concerned about the rhetoric that's been used by you.
It's been inflammatory, and it's not OK for that officer to choke George Floyd to death.
But we have to call for calm.
We have to have police reform called for.
We've called out our National guard and our state police, but the rhetoric that's coming
out of the White House is making it worse.
And I need to say that people are feeling real pain out there and we've got to have
national leadership in calling for calm and making sure that we're addressing the concerns
of the legitimate peaceful protesters.
That will help us to bring order.
And of course Trump’s response when Pritzker said that Trump’s rhetoric has been inflammatory
– because IT HAS – was to attack him right back and say that he doesn’t like Pritzker’s
rhetoric.
In other words, the response by the most powerful man in the world was basically “I know you
are but what am I.” Wonderful.
It wasn’t just Pritzker.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said quote, “The president repeatedly and viciously
attacked governors, who are doing everything they can to keep the peace while fighting
a once-in-a-generation global pandemic.
The president’s dangerous comments should be gravely concerning to all Americans, because
they send a clear signal that this administration is determined to sow the seeds of hatred and
division, which I fear will only lead to more violence and destruction.
We must reject this way of thinking.”
And look, this entire issue is clearly complicated and nuanced and you simply cannot think of
what’s happening as a monolith.
But the point here, at the base of all of this, is that there is a righteous anger from
Black people stemming from the fact that authorities in this country do not perceive them as people.
That’s what’s at the core of these protests.
And so to think that the answer here is to quote “dominate” them is just the epitome
of a fundamental misunderstanding of this situation.
I really don’t know if Trump doesn’t WANT to find a solution here because he revels
in chaos or whether he’s just so glaringly incompetent that he thinks calling for police
brutality AGAINST PEOPLE WHO ARE LITERALLY PROTESTING AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY is a good
idea.
And it is sickening to think that Trump would want to prolong what was already been an absolutely
devastating period of civil unrest, and yet he has a vested interest in doing so.
Why?
Because it is a distraction from his own failed response to the pandemic.
Trump may stand at the lectern day after day and pretend that he’s God’s gift to the
world when it comes to the coronavirus, but the truth is that the US response, under his
leadership, was among the worst on the face of the earth.
And the American people know that.
His approval ratings are the lowest they’ve been in YEARS.
And that is because we can see, plain as day, that Trump was more concerned with protecting
the stock market than American lives.
We heard his lies day after day, his promises that cases would soon be down to zero, that
it was contained, that it would go away with the heat, that it would miraculously disappear.
There’s video evidence of all of that, and so as many times as he tries to rewrite history,
the fact is that his failings are right out in the open.
And so his only option then is to deflect our attention.
And these protests not only fulfill that need, but they are dead center in his comfort zone.
In case you haven’t noticed, whenever Trump is backed into a corner, he reacts by appealing
to his base.
And what serves as better red meat for that base than a race riot? Trump thrives in division.
He thrives in exploiting the differences between us.
That’s why, amid perhaps the worst protests of many of our lifetimes, Trump’s response
was to get on Twitter and tweet, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a
racially charged and not-so-subtle threat harkening back to the 1960s.
He’s not looking for unity here; far from it.
He’s looking to fan the flames of division as much as humanly possible because the more
we’re talking about protests and riots and civil rights and cops, the less we’re talking
about his failed response to the ongoing pandemic that’s already claimed the lives of 100,000
people.
Think about that for a second.
Trump would prefer to incite violence and lead America to the brink of a race war because
it helps him personally deflect attention away from a botched political issue.
The extent to which Trump will not only let the country burn but ENCOURAGE it to help
himself cannot be overstated.