Advertisement

States Reject Trump’s Threat Of Military Crackdown: ‘Stay Out Of Our Business’

State leaders rejected President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash the military against Americans protesting the death of George Floyd on Monday, with many accusing Trump of “inflaming” the situation rather than working to reckon with growing national outrage.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said the president had responded to the protests over the Minneapolis police killing of Floyd in “precisely the wrong way” just moments after federal officers violently forced those gathered near the White House away with tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Trump, standing in the Rose Garden with explosions sounding in the background, vowed to crack down on anti-racist demonstrations and threatened to mobilize “all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting.” He specifically called on all governors to deploy the National Guard and establish an “overwhelming law enforcement presence.”

But Pritzker and other governors roundly pushed back against those calls.

“I reject the notion that the federal government can send troops into the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said on CNN. “The president has created an incendiary moment here... His rhetoric is inflaming passions.”

“He should stay out of our business, Pritzker added. “Every day he has inflamed racial tensions.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) echoed that call shortly before New York City enacted its first curfew in more than 70 years. Protests throughout the city had been largely peaceful on Monday, but some looting and vandalism was spreading through retail districts as night set in.

“I say thank you but no thank you,” Cuomo told CNN. “They used the American military to push...

Continue reading on HuffPost