Then-president Donald Trump reportedly demanded the U.S. military shoot Black Lives Matter protesters who filled streets around the White House in June 2020 in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and grew extremely angry when he was told he couldn’t do that, Axios reported Monday, citing a soon-to-be-released memoir by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
In the memoir, titled “A Sacred Oath,” Esper describes a meeting in the first week of June, 2020 as “surreal, sitting in front of the Resolute desk, inside the Oval Office, with this idea weighing heavily in the air, and the president red-faced and complaining loudly about the protests underway in Washington, D.C.”
“Can’t you just shoot them?” rump asked, according to the former defense secretary, who opposed the move.
The explosive revelation confirms previous reports that in multiple Oval Office meetings during the civil unrest, Trump suggested invoking the Insurrection Act to put U.S. military troops on the streets to unleash violence against BLM protesters.
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As noted by Axios, the book went through an extensive Pentagon clearance process, including reviews by “nearly three dozen 4-star generals, senior civilians, and some Cabinet members.”
Read more at Axios
