An agitated Trump encourages governors to use aggressive tactics on protesters [View all]
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Source: cnn
By Kevin Liptak and Ryan Nobles, CNN
Updated 12:41 PM ET, Mon June 1, 2020
Trump tells governors they must 'dominate' protesters
(CNN)President Donald Trump, agitated and distressed after three nights of violent protests in dozens of cities across the country, including outside of his home, told the nation's governors in a video teleconference Monday to aggressively target violent protesters he said would only respond to a show of force. "You have to dominate or you'll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people," the President told the governors in a call from the basement White House Situation Room, according to an audio recording of the call obtained by CNN.
In the conversation -- which drew a rebuke from Illinois's Democratic governor on the call -- Trump appeared angry and chastised what he characterized as a weak response to protests in certain places, which he said allowed violence to take hold. Trump emphasized his belief the violence is being fomented by forces from the "radical left." And he suggested to governors it was their responsibility, not his, to tamp down harshly on the continued unrest.
"It's a movement, if you don't put it down it will get worse and worse," Trump said. "The only time its successful is when you're weak and most of you are weak." In admonishing the governors for not doing more to quell the violence, which raged again on Sunday night, Trump was reverting to a hardline "law and order" mantle he believes is the best way to confront growing racial unrest across the nation.
Trump said the "whole world was laughing at Minneapolis over the police station getting burned," referring to the city where protests began last week after the death of an unarmed black man who was being taken into police custody.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/politics/donald-trump-race-police/index.html
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