Sunny Hostin claimed that the Trump campaign was “putting out” a “manufactured” narrative that Black Lives Matter protests gripping the nation were violent.
“You know, my understanding is that, according to a new Fox News poll, more voters classified BLM unrest as riots rather than protests, and that is scary because that’s feeding into this narrative that the Trump campaign has been putting out there. And if you really look at the facts, 93% of protests are nonviolent, and, in fact, when Trump has put in force, has put in federal enforcement, out of those 93%, the violence ratchets up,” Hostin said on The View on Monday.
“So, more than 5% of the protests, actually, that are linked to the Black Lives Matter movement that was met by force by authorities compared to 1% of other sorts of demonstrations, like COVID protests or protests about being unhappy about not being able to, you know, go to the barbershop,” The View co-host continued. “So, this is manufactured by the Trump campaign, and I just wish that people understood that and knew that and just looked up the real facts about protests in this country.”
A study published by the U.S. Crisis Project found that 93% of 10,600 demonstrations over the summer were peaceful. The study revealed that about 570 violent demonstrations occurred in 220 locations.
The Fox News poll referred to by Hostin found that 48% of those surveyed said “riots” were a better term to describe the unrest in Portland, New York City, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Forty percent of respondents described the unrest as “protests.”
Thirty-nine percent of respondents blamed “left-wing radicals” for the violence, compared to 33% who blamed “right-wing radicals.” The poll also found that most respondents trusted Democratic nominee Joe Biden to “do a better job on law and order” than President Trump.
The poll was conducted between Sept. 7 and 10 and included responses from 1,191 likely voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
