Official White House Photo by Tia DufourBy KATHERINE FAULDERS, JUSTIN FISHEL and ALEXANDER MALLIN, ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — In a call with the nation’s governors Monday, an angry President Donald Trump told state leaders they must “dominate” out of control protests, calling on law enforcement to get “much tougher” and blaming unrest erupting across many communities squarely on “the radical left.”
The president and Attorney General William Barr used the word “dominate” nearly a dozen times in describing how law enforcement should posture themselves.
“You have to dominate, if you don’t dominate you’re wasting your time,” Trump said, according to a recording of the call obtained by ABC News. “They’re gonna run over you, you’re gonna look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate.”
“You have to know what you’re dealing with,” the president told the nation’s governors. “And it’s happened before, this happened numerous times and the only time it’s successful is when you’re weak and most of you are weak.”
Trump said they were making a mistake by letting looters destroy property and called for arresting and prosecuting those captured on camera, saying they should be put in jail for 10 years.
The president also said governors were slow to call on the National Guard.
“Why you’re not calling them up I don’t know — but you making a mistake and making yourselves look like fools.”
“These are terrorists,” President Trump said of the protesters. “Antifa and the radical left.”
In his opening remarks he made no mention of George Floyd, the African American man killed in police custody last week in Minneapolis, and did not address the protesters concerns about racial inequality.
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