WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has added fuel to racial fires, calling violent protesters outraged by the death of a black man in police custody “thugs” and reviving a civil-rights era phrase fraught with racist overtones.
On Friday, he threatened to take action to bring the city of Minneapolis “under control.” And he tweeted that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts," which Twitter quickly flagged as violating rules against “glorifying violence.”
Trump said what he meant was that, “Looting leads to shooting” and that “nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media.”