David Jackson and Michael Collins
USA TODAYMon, 01 Jun 2020 18:28 UTC
© Reuters / Yuri Gripas
President Donald Trump went on an extended rant against the nation's governors Monday, calling them "weak" for failing to quell the
violence in the nation's cities.
"Most of you are weak," Trump told governors on a conference call. "You have to arrest people."
"You have to dominate," Trump said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by CBS News. "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. You have to dominate."
Attorney General Bill Barr, who was also on the Monday call, told governors they have to "dominate" the streets and control, not react to crowds, and urged them to "go after troublemakers."
Trump's remarks to the governors followed a sixth day of clashes Sunday between police and protesters in cities across the nation that erupted in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
© Alex Brandon, AP
More than 4,400 arrests have been made at demonstrations nationwide since video emerged showing former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin holding his knee to Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd can be heard saying "I can't breathe."
Trump told the governors that he is beefing up police presence in Washington.
"Washington was under very good control, but we're going to have it under much more control," Trump said. "We're going to pull in thousands of people ... We're going to clamp down very, very strong."
Trump said protesters to have to be put in jail "for 10 years, and you'll never see this stuff again."
Comment: Meanwhile, amid riots in DC residents are panicking after an
explosion was heard, and mobs of protesters descended on the White House, and the historic St John's Church nearby was set alight by arsonists.
Trump
called his presidential opponent Joe Biden 'clueless' over his campaign's decision to help fund efforts to bail out Minneapolis protesters who were arrested.
The governor of Minnesota has
admitted to using intelligence support from the Pentagon in trying to crack down on the riots. Seems like it's not very far from troops being on the streets at this point.
In Louisville, Kentucky, police and protesters engaged in back and forth shooting after the city's imposed curfew,
leading to a protester being killed. A journalist in DC who writes for the Gateway Pundit, Cassandra Fairbanks, had to
arm herself in her home with her 9-year-old daughter after it was attacked by rioters outside.
Update (2 June): Police and National Guard troops
pushed back protesters in DC using tear gas to clear a way for Trump to visit St. Johns church. A short time later, Trump gave a speech calling himself a "law and order" president and that he was "dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property."
DC residents went to Twitter to
put up videos of the National Guard policing the streets of DC:
During Trump's address to the nation, he
threatened to deploy the military anywhere around the country where state leaders failed to restore order, calling the rioters "domestic terrorists."
FUCKING COWARD!
RC