在前一天晚上发布了两条种族歧视的微博后,总统唐纳德·特朗普周五标志着6月20日,一个庆祝奴隶制终结的节日,一份书面声明呼吁美国人承诺“忠于我们的最高理想”
在一个因警察杀害非裔美国人而陷入种族紧张的国家,这一天有了新的意义,他选择不在公开场合说任何话,尽管就在几天前,他错误地认为这个节日“非常有名”
乔治·弗洛伊德去世后,数周的抗议活动呼吁种族公正,他在因安排6月20日的竞选集会而遭到反击后做出了这一声明。
然后,在周五早上,他在推特上威胁任何出现在集会上的抗议者,集会现在定于周六在俄克拉荷马州的塔尔萨举行,那里是全国最严重的种族屠杀之一。
2020年6月17日,在华盛顿白宫东厅,唐纳德·特朗普总统谈到了防止“总统授权退伍军人和结束国家自杀悲剧路线图”工作组。亚历克斯·布兰登/美联社
将正式的总统声明与深夜的推文并列只是最近几周总统如何在偶尔提供一个关于美国需要团结的照本宣科的信息,同时还使用更具分裂性的语言的最新例子,这些语言有时带有种族色彩。
他在6月20日精心准备的周五声明就在他之后几个小时发了什么一段视频中,一名白人男子戴着一顶“让美国再次伟大”的帽子,帮助一名黑人优步司机,一名妇女用手机拍摄了一段视频,并将其描述为白人男子是种族主义者。
总统也发了一段视频这看起来就像是美国有线电视新闻网用一个假食糜管播放的,声称“种族主义婴儿可能是特朗普的选民。”推特随后将这条推特贴上了被操纵媒体的标签。
在他最具争议的呼吁种族公正的推文中,总统推了一句话,重复了过去时代有争议的种族主义言论。
“刚刚和州长蒂姆·沃兹通了话,告诉他军方会全程支持他,”总统在五月份的推特上写道。"任何困难,我们将承担控制,但是,当抢劫开始,射击开始."
特朗普在随后的推文中没有回避这一声明,他说,“抢劫导致枪击,这就是为什么周三晚上一名男子在明尼阿波利斯被枪杀——或者看看刚刚在路易斯维尔发生的7人被枪杀的事情。我不想发生这种事,这就是昨晚发表的言论的含义……”
白宫后来辩称,特朗普不是在煽动暴力,而是“明确谴责暴力”
1967年,时任迈阿密警察局长的沃尔特·海德利在一次新闻发布会上谈到他的部门对“流氓”的镇压时,使用了“抢劫开始,枪击开始”这句话据《迈阿密先驱报》报道,他说迈阿密没有“面临严重的民间起义和抢劫问题,因为我已经让这个词过滤了,当抢劫开始时,枪击就开始了”。“我们不介意被指控警察暴力,”黑德利补充道。
特朗普,坐下来采访《华尔街日报》证实,他的意思是推特既是事实声明,也是威胁。“两者都有,”他说着大概的意思。
唐纳德·特朗普将于2020年6月19日在俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨的博克中心举行自冠状病毒(COVID-19)爆发以来的首次集会。塞思先驱报/法新社通过盖蒂图片
当总统在他的公共日程上没有任何事件的情况下纪念6月20日时,他被安排在6月20日庆祝另一件完全不同的事情:在因为冠状病毒而离开竞选活动数月后,他的签名集会的恢复。
总统告诉《华尔街日报》,他“做了一件好事”,最初计划在假期举行他的复出集会,谎称“没有人”知道6月20日,直到他,并把这个假期的“非常著名”归功于自己
据《华尔街日报》报道,奥巴马总统说,在他与一名黑人特勤局成员交谈后,决定将集会推迟,这名成员解释了这个节日的重要性,然后转向房间里的一名助手询问她是否听说过这个节日。
“我从去年白宫发表声明时就开始这么做了,”总统的通讯主管阿里萨·法拉回应道。
“哦真的吗?我们发表声明了吗?特朗普白宫发表了一份声明?”特朗普惊讶地说道。
当法拉证实这是事实时,总统回答说,“哦,好吧。很好。我不认为这是别人提出来的。但我们让人们意识到了这一点,这很好。”
除此之外,集会地点塔尔萨也招致了批评。塔尔萨是全国最血腥的种族暴力事件之一,1921年,该市的一些白人居民在后来被称为塔尔萨种族骚乱的事件中残忍地袭击了黑人居民。
2020年6月19日,在俄克拉荷马州的塔尔萨,唐纳德·特朗普总统的支持者在明天集会的地点——博克中心附近排队参加特朗普的竞选集会赢得麦克纳米/盖蒂图像
周六的集会预计将吸引多达10万名特朗普的支持者,其中一些人在集会前几天在塔尔萨有1.9万个座位的俄克拉荷马银行中心外排队。
特朗普本周声称,已有超过100万人索要该活动的门票,他的竞选团队一直在探索可能的场地,以容纳过多的人群。
当他准备在周六开始竞选活动时,抗议活动预计将在本周末在全国范围内继续,其中一些将再次出现在白宫的围栏上。
2020年6月19日,美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的支持者在俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨的博克中心附近自拍。塞思先驱报/法新社通过盖蒂图片
塔尔萨的官员们正准备见证一些近代史上最大的人群,6月20日的庆祝活动从周五开始在格林伍德区举行,一直延续到特朗普的集会和周末。
特朗普周五在推特上发出警告称,任何出现在户外或试图扰乱活动的抗议者将会看到“与他们在纽约、西雅图或明尼阿波利斯受到的待遇大不相同的场景”,将这些抗议者与“无政府主义者”、“抢劫者”和“下层民众”归为一类。"
“任何前往俄克拉荷马州的抗议者、无政府主义者、煽动者、抢劫者或下层民众请理解,你们不会像在纽约、西雅图或明尼阿波利斯那样受到对待。这将是一个非常不同的场景!”他发了推特。
白宫新闻秘书凯丽·麦克纳尼星期五晚些时候告诉记者,特朗普特别指的是暴力抗议者。
奥巴马总统周三表示,他将“考虑”将6月20日定为联邦假日的可能性,但他周五的声明中没有提到为此做出的任何努力。
After racially divisive tweets, Trump is quiet on Juneteenth holiday he claims he made 'famous'
After firing off a pair of racially insensitive tweets the night before, PresidentDonald Trumpon Friday marked Juneteenth, a holiday that celebrates the end of slavery, with a written statement calling on Americans to commit "to live true to our highest ideals."
He chose not to say anything in public on a day that had taken on new significance in a nation roiled by racial tension over police killings of African American men, even though just days earlier, he falsely took credit for making the holiday "very famous."
He made the claim after getting blowback for scheduling a campaign rally on Juneteenth following weeks of protests calling for racial justice after the death of George Floyd.
Then, on Friday morning, he tweeted a threat against any protesters who showed up at the rally, now scheduled for Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of one of nation's worse race massacres.
The juxtaposition of the formal presidential statement with the late night tweets was just the latest example of how the president has, in recent weeks, fluctuated between offering an occasional scripted message about the need for America coming together while also using more divisive language that has at times been racially charged.
His carefully-crafted Friday statement on Juneteenth came just hours after hetweeted out whata video that included what appeared to be a staged, fake story about a white man, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, helping a black Uber driver, in which a woman takes a cell phone video of the incident and portrays it as the white man being racist.
The president alsotweeted a videothat was altered to look as if CNN had broadcast it with a fake chyron that claimed, “Racist baby probably a Trump voter.” Twitter then labeled the tweet as manipulated media.
In one of his most controversial tweets amid the calls for racial justice, the president tweeted a phrase that echoed controversial racist remarks from a past era.
“Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way," the president tweeted in May. "Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Trump did not shy away from the statement in a following tweet, saying, "Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night - or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot. I don’t want this to happen, and that’s what the expression put out last night means.... "
The White House later argued that Trump was not inciting violence but "clearly condemned it."
In 1967, then-police chief of Miami Walter Headley used the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" at a press conference while addressing his department's crackdown on "hoodlums." He said Miami hadn't "faced serious problems with civil uprisings and looting because I've let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts," according to the Miami Herald. "We don't mind being accused of police brutality," Headley added.
Trump, in a sit-downinterviewwith the Wall Street Journal, confirmed that he meant the tweet as both a statement of fact and a threat. "Both," he said about the meaning.
As the president marked Juneteenth with no events on his public schedule, he had been slated to spend Juneteenth celebrating something else entirely: the resumption of his signature rallies after months off the campaign trail because of the coronavirus.
The president told the Journal that he “did something good” by initially scheduling his comeback rally on the holiday, falsely claiming that “nobody” knew of Juneteenth until him and took credit for making the holiday “very famous.”
The president said the decision to move the rally back came after he spoke to a black Secret Service member who explained the importance of the holiday and then turned to an aide in the room to ask if she had ever heard of the holiday, according to the Journal.
“I did from last year when the White House put out a statement,” the president’s communications director Alyssa Farah responded.
“Oh really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?” Trump said in surprise.
When Farah confirmed that was the case, the president replied, “Oh OK. Good. I don’t think it was put up by others. But we made people aware of it, and it’s good.”
In addition for the date, the rally has drawn criticism for its location in Tulsa, site of one of the nation’s bloodiest incidents of racial violence when, in 1921, some of the city’s white residents brutally attacked black residents in what became known as the Tulsa Race Riots.
Saturday’s rally is expected to draw as many as 100,000 Trump supporters, some of whom have lined up outside the 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma Center in Tulsa, days before the rally.
Trump claimed this week that over a million people had requested tickets for the event and his campaign has been exploring possible venues for an overflow crowd.
As he prepares to head out on the campaign trail on Saturday, protests are expected to continue across the country this weekend, some of which will come, once again, to the White House fence.
Tulsa officials are preparing to see some of the largest crowds in recent history with Juneteenth celebrations beginning Friday in the Greenwood District and extending throughout Trump’s rally and the weekend.
Trump on Friday tweeting a warning that any protestors who show up outside or try to disrupt the event will see a “much different scene than how they've been dealt with in "New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis," putting those protestors in the same category as “anarchists” “looters” and “lowlifes.”
“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!” he tweeted.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters later Friday that Trump was specifically referring to violent protesters.
The president said Wednesday that he would “take a look” at the possibility of designating Juneteenth a federal holiday, but his Friday statement made no mention of any effort to do so.