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Police fired tear gas on peaceful protestors outside the White House as President Trump made his first public address on the protests against police brutality, so that afterwards he could get a photo-op at a church he does not attend. As far as ~potent symbols of the Trump era~ go, we thought it would be hard to top the White House going dark as huge crowds outside in Washington, DC, and in dozens of other cities, demanded action. Mere hours later, we stand corrected.
- A series of peaceful protests against police brutality, sparked by the death of George Floyd, turned chaotic in many cities as a result of a violent response from police, and a destructive fringe that used the protests as cover for vandalism. Police officers in several cities effectively proved protestors’ point, as they deployed tear gas and rubber bullets with abandon, drove SUVs into crowds, pushed down an elderly man, and, on Sunday night, shot and killed a protestor in Louisville, KY. They also repeatedly targeted journalists as part of what now seems like a disturbing nationwide pattern. Vandalism and looting followed these escalations, prompting a number of governors to activate the National Guard and mayors to implement curfews.
- Beyond a few tweets pouring fuel on the fire, the president of the United States had nothing to say to Americans about the unrest over the weekend. That was probably for the best, seeing as how today he described the protests as “acts of domestic terror” and threatened to deploy the military against them. He also had this unhinged advice for governors on a conference call: "You have to dominate, if you don't dominate you're wasting your time. They're going to run over you. You're going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate.” Trump blamed the violence without evidence on “the radical left,” recommended long jail sentences, and advocated for police to show even less restraint: “You know, you're allowed to fight back, folks. You don't have to have a brick hit you in the face, and you don't do anything about it. You are allowed to fight back.”
- Trump has largely abandoned his pandering, insincere claim to mourn Floyd’s death in favor of calls for more aggressive police tactics. He tweeted on Sunday that the U.S. will designate Antifa as a terrorist organization, which 1) is unconstitutional, 2) makes little sense, in that Antifa is an amorphous movement with no centralized leadership, and 3) has nothing to do with what’s actually happening. Political leaders from both parties have sought to blame violence and destruction at the protests on “outside agitators,” perhaps from extremist groups. While the looting seems to have been driven by people unaligned with the protests (and often in different parts of the city), there hasn’t been much evidence that organized groups are traveling to protests from out of the area.
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Thus far, only one of the four officers involved in Floyd’s death has been arrested and charged.
- Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison will take over the prosecution in the case, and said he wouldn’t rush the investigation. This will surely make sense to the roughly 4,100 people who were arrested over the past few days, for much more serious crimes like “being at a protest.”
- As demonstrators take to the streets across the country and around the world, a much rarer protest is underway at Facebook. Dozens of employees staged a virtual walkout today, the first in the company’s history, protesting against executives’ decision to let Trump post lies and calls for violence on the platform. Staffers have circulated petitions internally and threatened to resign, and some have publicly tweeted their dissatisfaction. It remains to be seen whether Zuckerberg will be as interested in hearing from his employees as he is in hearing from Trump, with whom he had a “productive” chat on the phone on Friday.
In a moment of national turmoil layered over an ongoing pandemic and economic crisis, the White House is a darkened, barricaded leadership vacuum. Trump lacks both the capacity to convincingly call for unity, and the basic interest in doing so: While Joe Biden spoke with Floyd’s family and visited a protest site, the president cowered in the White House bunker and called for more brutality. Once again, Trump would rather stoke divisions than make a doomed case for his own competence, and once again, it’s going to get people hurt. Take action by donating to bail funds to keep protestors out of jail, and supporting organizations fighting against racism and police brutality.
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On today's Pod Save America, Jon, Jon, and Tommy talk to DeRay McKesson about the structural reform needed to combat police brutality, and what the George Floyd protests mean for enacting real change. Watch the interview here →
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The CDC will resume regular coronavirus briefings after three months of being sidelined by the White House. The CDC held its first briefing after the long hiatus on Friday, in which director Robert Redfield defended the agency’s surveillance of the coronavirus’s early spread in the U.S. The briefings have restarted as the White House task force has begun to wind down, and with Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx making fewer public appearances. Fauci said in an interview that his meetings with Trump had “dramatically decreased,” compared to when they were meeting four times a week, a month ago. The official U.S. death toll now stands at over 105,000, and the protests against police brutality could cause new infection spikes around the country. To be clear, new spikes were already all-but inevitable because of Trump’s reckless insistence on prematurely relaxing public-health restrictions, and it will be gross when he tries to blame a resurgence on the protests alone. (That said, if you were out protesting this weekend, it’s time to get tested and self-quarantine!)
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- George Floyd’s family commissioned an independent autopsy, which found that Floyd died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure,” contradicting the medical examiner who blamed the “combined effects” of Floyd’s underlying health conditions and his “being restrained.”
- President Trump had a phone call with Vladimir Putin today, during which they discussed the possibility of Russia attending the G7 summit. It’s unclear whether they discussed the protests, but the call preceded Trump’s teleconference with governors during which Trump said that Minnesota had become “a laughingstock all over the world.”
- NASA and SpaceX successfully launched two astronauts into orbit on Saturday, the first such launch from U.S. soil since 2011, and the first ever by a private company. The astronauts arrived safely at the International Space Station on Sunday. Because nothing can be fully good, here is Trump at the launch listening to the song “Macho Man.”
- The FBI’s top lawyer Dana Boente was forced to resign on Friday, after Fox News criticized his role in the Michael Flynn investigation. That decision reportedly came not from the FBI director, but from, wait for it, political leaders at the Justice Department.
- The U.S. sent two million doses of hydroxychloroquine to Brazil, days after the World Health Organization suspended clinical trials of the drug as a coronavirus treatment over safety concerns.
- An attendee of that Lake of the Ozarks Memorial Day pool party has tested positive for the coronavirus. (Plays a sad, slowed-down version of “High Hopes.”)
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio finally got around to denouncing NYPD officers for driving into a crowd of protesters, after initially defending the officers on Saturday. Anyway, while de Blasio was running around expressing his undying devotion to the NYPD, a police union doxxed his daughter.
- The Dallas Police Department asked people to snitch on possible crimes at Black Lives Matter protests, and K-pop enthusiasts flooded its app with fan videos instead. Also, someone hacked Chicago's police scanner and played internet classic "Chocolate Rain." We've come a long way since the 1986 riots, baby.
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Rather than infiltrate protests, neo-Nazi groups online have advocated for terrorist attacks on cities that are otherwise preoccupied with civil unrest. Good thing Trump’s got that Antifa terrorist designation in the works, though. Online chatter among accelerationist neo-Nazis shows them calling for attacks on synagogues and critical infrastructure, now that police forces are spread thin responding to mass protests. While some far-right activists have attended protests, and officials have blamed them for fomenting unrest, many online white-supremacist accounts have advised the opposite to their followers, arguing that it would give authorities an opportunity to identify suspects in their movement.
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The Minnesota Freedom Fund raised $20 million in the space of four days.
The Celebs have come out to join the protests.
The Other Celebs have offered up contributions to bail out protesters, and used their platforms to fundraise.
Two Maryland teens (who should be Celebs) created Teens Helping Seniors, which connects older adults with teenagers who will deliver groceries and other supplies. It now has 14 chapters nationwide.
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