At an Oval Office meeting late Monday morning, tempers were flaring. Trump and some of his senior aides wanted federal troops on the streets, and fast.
The author of this commentary said he hopes the secretary of defense and Joint Chiefs chairman avoid risking further harm to the military by considering carefully any decision to deploy active-duty military to America’s streets.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper is facing the most politically charged crisis of his tenure, criticized for calling protester-filled streets a military “battle space” and accused of failing to keep the military out of politics.
Claiming he is backed by a “silent majority,” President Donald Trump turned the nation’s capital into a model for the overwhelming force he believes critical to stop sometimes-violent protests that have spread across the country in a time of racial unrest.
By Zeke Miller, The Associated Press and Jonathan Lemire, The Associated Press
Officials in the nation’s capital pushed back Tuesday on an aggressive response by the federal government to demonstrations over the death of George Floyd, with the mayor flatly rejecting a Trump administration proposal for the federal government to take over its police force and one county in Virginia pulling its officers from Washington.
Some of the passengers from a cruise ship in California that carried people infected by the new coronavirus arrived at an air base in Georgia to begin a two-week quarantine, as more than 100 schools in two districts were closed Wednesday and public events were scrapped.
Families of people who died during military service would receive free access to national parks if Congress approves a proposal from two Maine lawmakers.