President Donald Trump has responded to an outbreak of violent protests in Minneapolis over the police murder of a black man named George Floyd by seeming to call for violence against the demonstrators. In a post that Twitter actually ended up censoring because of its glorification of violence, the president insisted that the Military would “assume control” if the situation got further out of hand, threateningly tweeting that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Hillary Clinton condemned the president’s call for violence in a public statement that she posted on Twitter this Friday, and she insisted that Trump must be replaced as president.
Headley, the Miami police chief who in 1967 coined the looting/shooting line the president used, also said at the time, “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality.” https://t.co/zeRbbNg1H3
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 29, 2020
Clinton posted on Twitter:
‘he president of the United States is calling for violence against American citizens. That is so wrong. We need honest reckoning and reconciliation. If you haven’t already joined the work to replace him in November, start now.’
The president of the United States is calling for violence against American citizens.
That is so wrong. We need honest reckoning and reconciliation.
If you haven’t already joined the work to replace him in November, start now.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 29, 2020
Trump has largely yet to acknowledge the racism weighing on the situation in Minneapolis. In some of his recent public commentary about the issue, he vaguely called for “justice,” and that’s it. As his more recent commentary has revealed, the president’s idea of “justice” includes violence against protesters who he doesn’t like, apparently. It’s far from the first comment like this from the president — around the time of the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, who Trump had nominated and who was accused of sexual misconduct, which sparked protests, the president suggested that protesting should be made illegal in the United States. Like a wannabe authoritarian dictator, he said that he thinks “it’s embarrassing for the country to allow protesters.”
Trump went from ‘Make America Great Again’ to ‘When the Looting starts, the Shooting starts’ in less than four years our country is on fire, 100k are dead from a pandemic and a criminal POTUS stokes the flames of racism and threatens to use the military to kill Americans.
— NoelCaslerComedy (@CaslerNoel) May 29, 2020
In this situation, the president has failed to inspire any sort of systematic confidence in his leadership, although the Justice Department has apparently launched their own investigation of George Floyd’s death.
12 a.m. Thursday: Trump RTs video saying "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat."
12:53 a.m. Friday: Trump tweets "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) May 29, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to Clinton below:
