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Trump on police reform, protests, campaign rally
President Donald Trump addressed police reform, the George Floyd protests and his upcoming campaign rally in Oklahoma during an interview with FOX News.
During an exclusive interview with FOX News, President Donald Trump defended police but admitted that some reform is needed.
“We have to keep our police and our law enforcement strong. They have to do it right, they have to be trained in a proper manner, they have to do it right,” President Trump said.
Trump said he’d like to see an end to the police use of chokeholds, except in certain circumstances.
“I don’t like chokeholds," Trump said. “Generally speaking,” he said, the practice “should be ended.” But Trump also talked at length about a scenario in which a police officer is alone and fighting one-on-one and could have to resort to the tactic.
“Sometimes if you’re alone, and you’re fighting someone whose tough, and you get somebody in a chokehold... What are you gonna do now? Let go and say: ‘Oh let’s start all over again? I’m not allowed to have you in a chokehold,'" he said. “I think the concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent, so perfect. And then you, realize if it’s a one-on-one... if a police officer is in a bad scuffle and he’s got somebody... So you have to be very careful."
“With that being said, it would be, I think, a very good thing that, generally speaking, it should be ended," he added.
President Trump is planning his first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic began in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19th. That date is also known as “Juneteenth,” the day marking the end of slavery in the United States.
Tulsa was also the scene of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, when the town’s white residents, angered by African-American progress, attacked and killed as many as 300 black residents.
Black leaders in Tulsa have described the date and location of Trump’s rally as a “slap in the face,” but Trump defended himself in the interview.
“The fact that I'm having a rally on that day, you can really think about that very positively as a celebration, because a rally, to me, is a celebration,” Trump said.
President Trump also explained his “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” tweet from during the protests.
"If there's looting there's probably going to be shooting, and that's not as a threat that's really just a fact," Trump said.
On Saturday, President Trump will be giving the commencement address at West Point for the graduating class of cadets.
With the Associated Press.