“I remember this guy Velshi. He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas, and he went down. He was down. ‘My knee. My knee.’ Nobody cared. These guys didn’t care. They moved him aside.
And they just walked right through. It was the most beautiful thing. After we take all that crap for weeks and weeks, and you finally see men get up there and go right through them, wasn’t it really a beautiful sight? It’s called law and order.”
Donald Trump temperate and oh so presidential remarks at a Minnesota MAGA rally.
“So, @realDonaldTrump, you call my getting hit by authorities in Minneapolis on 5/30/20 (by a rubber bullet, btw, not a tear gas cannister) a ‘beautiful thing’ called ‘law and order’. What law did I break while covering an entirely peaceful (yes, entirely peaceful) march?”
Ali Velshi’s response
Velshi was not agitating or protesting, as a correspondent for MSNBC he was in Minneapolis covering a peaceful protest in the aftermath of George Floyd’s lynching by the Minneapolis police.
The only violence was perpetrated by the police who fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the peaceful demonstrators. Velshi was hit on the knee by a rubber bullet, and the cameras captured him writhing in agony.
Only a petty person would gloat when a rioter or an arsonist is hit by a rubber bullet, and only a heartless monster would gloat when a reporter just doing his job has the misfortune of being hit by a rubber bullet.
Trump’s despicable remarks were met with applause and laughter by his MAGA crowd of predominantly white evangelical Christians. Is anyone surprised that white evangelicals are so bloodthirsty and vengeful?
When cops fire tear gas cannisters and rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators that’s not an example of maintaining law and order, it’s an example of police arrogance and contempt for the people they have sworn to protect and serve, that led to the murder of George Floyd.
Trump and his followers are a threat to freedom of speech, law and order and democracy itself. It’s time to kick Trump to the curb.