In his first remarks since massive protests have swept the country, President Trump said tonight that the looting and violent demonstrations in reaction to the death of George Floyd in police custody were “acts of domestic terror.”
In remarks in the Rose Garden, he said he planned for a police and law enforcement presence to “dominate the streets” and said he would respond with an “overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled.”
Trump called himself an “ally of peaceful protesters” at the very moment reporters could hear such protesters being tear gassed outside the White House.
We can hear the explosions from the streets as Trump is speaking in the Rose Garden. pic.twitter.com/yRporcjN0T
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 1, 2020
Here is what was happening outside the White House as President Trump was giving his Rose Garden address and saying he is an “ally of all peaceful protestors.” Peaceful protestors being tear gassed outside of the WH gates. I confirmed because I was teargassed along with them. pic.twitter.com/yg0wbSrIXn
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) June 1, 2020
This is what happened on the other side of the White House only 5 minutes before President Trump began remarks in the Rose Garden. pic.twitter.com/n3UNLTBAKn
— Allie Malloy (@AlliemalCNN) June 1, 2020
Earlier in the day, Trump had berated America’s governors over their response to the protests across the nation, calling the protesters “terrorists,” demanding “retribution,” and warning the governors that they will look like “jerks” if they don’t order protesters arrested and imprisoned.
Speaking on a private conference call, audio of which was obtained by The New York Times, Trump began the conversation with an extended, angry diatribe.
“You have to dominate,” he told governors on the call. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time — they’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.”
Trump continued: “You have to arrest people, and you have to try people, and they have to go jail for long periods of time.”
Trump, who has not addressed the nation since the unrest began, said he was putting Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “in charge,” but did not immediately specify what that meant or if he would deploy the military to quell the violence in the nation’s cities.
Alluding to television footage of violence and looting, Trump called the people committing those acts “scum” and demanded of the governors:
“Why aren’t you prosecuting them?” In blunt remarks rarely heard from an American president, he prodded the governors not to be “too careful.”
Taking over a call that was supposed to feature Vice President Mike Pence, Trump said Minnesota had become “a laughingstock all over the world.”
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, who was on the call, said at a news conference afterward that he took exception to Trump’s remark.
“I said no one is laughing here, we’re in pain,” Walz told reporters. “I also shared with the president that a posture of force on the ground is both unsustainable militarily — it’s also unsustainable socially, because it’s the antithesis of how we live.”
Two autopsies released today agreed: George Floyd’s death was a homicide.
But the autopsies, one by a government agency and one by doctors working with the Floyd family, differed over the specific causes of death and whether there were contributing factors beyond the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office said Floyd had died of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”
The medical examiner also cited significant contributing conditions, saying that Floyd suffered from heart disease, and was high on fentanyl and had recently used methamphetamine at the time of his death.
The coroner’s conclusions differed from the results of a private autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family, which was released a few hours earlier.
That autopsy said Floyd died not just because of the Minneapolis police officer’s knee lodged at his neck, but also because of the other officers who helped hold him down.
Dr. Allecia M. Wilson of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, were hired by Floyd’s family to help determine his cause of death.
Baden said their autopsy “shows that Mr. Floyd had no underlying medical problem that caused or contributed to his death.”
Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was seen in a video kneeling on Floyd’s neck — even after Floyd lost consciousness — has been charged with third-degree murder.
Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for the family, said that the weight of two other police officers on Floyd’s back had prevented blood from reaching his brain and air from reaching his lungs.
Chief Medaria Arradondo of the Minneapolis Police Department said in an interview that three former officers who were present when Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck — and who did not intervene — were complicit in his death.