Trump's Big Moment in Front of a Church Shows He Has Missed the Point of the Protests

Before police launched tear gas and rubber bullets within a block of the White House. Before officers on horseback charged a line of protestors. Before President Donald Trump held up a Bible in front of a church with the sting of chemicals still in the air. There were the trucks.

Shortly after 5 p.m. on Monday in Washington, a line of nine military trucks carrying National Guard troops in helmets and tan camouflage uniforms slowly rolled onto the White House grounds and down a narrow alley past the entrance to the West Wing, the canvas tops passing just below the windows of the offices of the President’s chief of staff, the vice president and the national security advisor.

Protestors, calling for an end to police violence and systematic racial discrimination, could be heard chanting louder across Lafayette Square Park as the District of Columbia National Guard vehicles drove out of the White House’s north gate, and turned right along a fence line that, on another June evening, would have been dotted with tourists snapping selfies in front of the north portico’s iconic columns.

The rare showing of military might at the White House was just the beginning of the orchestrated drama Trump had set in motion. Inside the White House, a podium was being set up in the Rose Garden for Trump to address the nation roiled by wide-spread protests and vandalism following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. In the surrounding blocks, police and federal officers were positioning themselves as more protestors gathered and the 7 p.m. curfew neared.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-trump-big-moment-front-085753557.html