Read Time: 4 Minutes
Protests/Racial & Social Issues
- President Trump compared police officers using excessive force inappropriately to a golfer missing a short putt, saying sometimes “they choke.”
“They choke. Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt,” Trump said.
- President Trump decried Black Lives Matter as a “discriminatory” organization that is “bad for Black people” as part of a broader diatribe against protests in response to racial injustice.
“Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization,” Trump claimed. “The first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, I said, ‘That’s a terrible name.’ It’s so discriminatory. It’s bad for Black people. It’s bad for everybody.”
- President Trump says that he is not planning to meet with members of Jacob Blake’s family while in Kenosha, Wisconsin because he claimed they wanted to have “lawyers involved” which he called “inappropriate.”
“They wanted me to speak but they wanted to have lawyers involved and I thought that was inappropriate so I didn’t do that,” Trump said.
- Jacob Blake’s father said that the family does not have a pastor after President Trump said during his press briefing that he spoke with the family’s pastor.
“We don’t have a family pastor,” Jacob Blake Sr. said. “I don’t know who he talked to. I don’t care who he talked to.”
- An uncle of Jacob Blake accused Trump of “drumming” up violence in the country and said the Blake family doesn’t want “anything to do with him.”
“How could they not be feeding on violence when the man in the White House is steady drumming it up? Did you not think it would not trickle down to the streets? It has.”
- President Trump defended the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager accused of killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, saying during a new press briefing that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense and was “very violently attacked” by demonstrators and would have been killed if he didn’t open fire. Trump also refused to condemn his supporters who were accused of using paintball guns on protesters in Portland, instead lashing out at what he said were leftist protesters.
- Republican Wisconsin lawmakers did not participate in a special session by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to address police training and criminal justice reforms in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in the state.
- Republican Rep. Jim Banks has introduced legislation that would bar individuals from receiving federal unemployment assistance if they are convicted of a crime during a protest, and suggested protesters are being paid by far-left groups to violently protest.
- President Trump does not want to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests in U.S. cities, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday, after he had previously floated the possibility amid persistent demonstrations against racial injustice that have at times grown violent.
- Sgt. Chad Walker, a police officer in Columbia, South Carolina was suspended without pay after video emerged of him using a racist slur multiple times outside of a crowded bar.
In a video, Walker could be seen and heard Saturday outside of Bar None in the city’s Five Points neighborhood using the N-word multiple times after a Black man who is not seen on video yelled the word at the officer who was leaving the bar. Walker, who is white, appears to be arguing with patrons in the video, asserting that he can say the N-word because a Black patron had just referred to him by the term.
- Hundreds of University of Alabama athletes marched on campus on Monday to protest against racial injustice, with football coach Nick Saban appearing to lead the crowd.
Trump Administration
- Vice President Mike Pence was told to be on standby to assume presidential powers during President Trump’s abrupt visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last year, according to New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt’s upcoming book, “Donald Trump v. The United States.”
Schmidt wrote that he learned “in the hours leading up to Trump’s trip to the hospital, word went out in the West Wing for the vice president to be on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.”
- President Trump offered the position of FBI director to then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in exchange for a guarantee of personal loyalty, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt writes in his book.
“Kelly immediately realized the problem with Trump’s request for loyalty, and he pushed back on the president’s demand,” Schmidt writes, according to an excerpt obtained by Axios. “Kelly said that he would be loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law, but he refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump.”
- EPA has finalized a rollback of wastewater regulations from coal-fired power plants, which critics say will allow dangerous substances including arsenic and mercury to leach into waterways.
- President Trump’s lawyers warned in a court filing that they will take the fight over the subpoena for his tax returns back to the Supreme Court if they lose the current round at a New York-based federal appeals court.
- House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney announced a subpoena Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for documents related to recent reforms to the U.S.Postal Service that have prompted nationwide concerns and fears ballots may go uncounted in the November election.
- A court has, for the second time, struck down a Trump administration attempt to limit the penalties faced by automakers who do not meet mileage standards.
“Once again, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the Trump Administration cannot give away polluting passes to automakers who lag behind on meeting standards required by law,” an environmental group said celebrating the ruling.
- A federal appeals court has just rejected Michael Flynn’s effort to force a judge to immediately dismiss the charges against him, overturning an earlier decision that would have allowed Trump’s Department of Justice to drop its case against the former national security adviser.
Sources: ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
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