Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser took a stab at President Trump’s tweets related to unrest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minnesota.
“The president has a responsibility to help calm the nation,” Bowser said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “He can start by not sending divisive tweets that are meant to hearken to the segregationist past of our country, and he can start by doing that right now. We certainly urge him to do that.”
Trump sent a barrage of tweets over the weekend related to Floyd and the protests across the country that followed his death last week. He blasted local leadership in Minneapolis for its inability to control the situation, threatening to send in the National Guard to help.
The president also referred to some of the protesters as “thugs” and accused those involved with looting and destruction of being paid left-wing actors or members of the antifa. He added, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a quote from controversial Miami Police Chief Walter Headley in the 1960s. Twitter put a warning on the tweet, accusing the president of glorifying violence.
Bowser said while she disagrees with the ways some of the protests have spiraled, she understands the frustration.
“We have systematic issues in our country to address,” Bowser said. “It’s going to take us at every level, federal and local. It’s going to take community and government to heal the hurt that people are feeling. So what you see in cities across our nation, what we saw last night, people who are angry and people who are hurting, and some not doing it in ways that are helpful to our cause, but we still have to acknowledge that hurt and that anger.”
