President Trump has a new defense regarding his demand earlier this month for governors to “dominate” protesters by activating the National Guard to quell the violence that emerged during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
During a roundtable at Gateway Church in Dallas on Thursday afternoon — which included faith leaders, law enforcement officials and small business owners — Trump said that his administration “working to finalize an executive order” that will encourage police departments nationwide to use “force with compassion.”
The President then proceeded to defend his demand for governors to call in the National Guard to “dominate the streets” earlier this month, claiming that he meant using “force with compassion.”
“But if you’re going to have to really do a job, if somebody’s really bad, you’re going to have to do it with real strength, real power,” Trump said, before responding to the criticism over his incendiary remarks by ripping into “what happened in New York City.”
“The damage they’ve done — you have to dominate the streets. And I was criticized for that statement,” Trump said. “I made the statements with the ‘dominate the street’ and they said, ‘oh that’s such a terrible thing.’ Well, guess what? You know who dominated the streets? People that you don’t want to dominate the streets, look at the damage they did.”
Trump added that he’ll “stick with that” and thinks “most” people attending the roundtable will also do so out of “compassion.”
“Maybe every person in this room will stick with that, and we’re doing it with compassion,” Trump said. “If you think about it, we’re dominating the street with compassion because we’re saving lives, we’re saving businesses, we’re saving families from being wiped out after working hard for 20 and 30 years.”
Watch Trump’s remarks below:
Trump claims he was misunderstood, wanted to "dominate the streets with compassion." pic.twitter.com/HsNGZOOU41
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 11, 2020
