George Floyd’s brother said he could hardly get a word in during his phone call with President Trump last week.
“He didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak,” Philonise Floyd said in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday. “It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off, like, ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.'”
“And I just told him, ‘I want justice.’ I said that I couldn’t believe that they committed a modern-day lynching in broad daylight,” he added.
George Floyd, an unnamed black man, died Monday after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes during his arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week. Video of the incident showed Floyd pleading for his life, saying he couldn’t breathe.
Trump said on Friday he had spoken with Floyd’s family, whom he called “terrific people” but did not offer details of their conversation.
“I want to express our nation’s deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies to the family of George Floyd,” the president said at a White House event.
Philonise Floyd said he also spoke with Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival.
“I asked Vice President Biden, and I never had to beg a man before, but I asked him, could he please, please get justice for my brother,” he said.
