CNN anchor Don Lemon accused President Trump of being on the path to becoming a dictator after he threatened to deploy the military within the country to crack down on protests.
“Open your eyes, America,” Mr. Lemon said Monday evening on the cable network. “We are teetering on a dictatorship. This is chaos.”
Mr. Lemon made the remark moments after Mr. Trump concluded a speech delivered in response to nationwide protests sparked by the recent death George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in policy custody a week earlier.
Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Trump said he was mobilizing the military in response to the unrest and threatened to put soldiers in U.S. cities.
“If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” vowed Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump issued the threat moments after federal authorities abruptly cleared out a peaceful protest taking place on the other side of the White House in Lafayette Square Park. The president subsequently walked through the area after concluding his speech to pose for a photograph outside a nearby church that had been vandalized during the unrest.
“Is the president declaring war on Americans?” Mr. Lemon asked on CNN. “He is saying he wants to protect peaceful protesters at the same time sending law enforcement and military into the streets to push peaceful protesters back, to be aggressive with peaceful protesters. He is doing the exact opposite of what he said in that speech.”
“He’s playing a very dangerous game because this will backfire,” Mr. Lemon said later. “People are upset and they’re angry. These people, as I have been saying as well, they feel like they are occupied in their own communities by police departments. Many of them militarized police departments. Now the entire country, according to his orders, we are living under a militarized country or we will be soon. And it will play out in front of our very eyes on national television.”
Floyd, 46, died last Monday after a member of the Minneapolis Police Department kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Protests have erupted across the country ever since.
The police officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired from the MPD following Floyd’s death and has been charged with felony counts of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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