The President Is Ready To Protect Urban Areas

President Donald Trump is making it clear. He is not going to stand by and watch liberal big-city mayors across America allow protesters and rioters to pursue mayhem and leave millions in damages. The President is singling out Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia where he is considering ordering federal law enforcement agents to move in to keep the peace.  The president at no time threatened to send in federal military troops. Demonstrations over police brutality and racial injustice have been taking place in Detroit and many of the nation’s large cities, especially Portland and Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Detroit last year, saw the highest rate of violent crime among the nation’s largest cities. Detroit has been the scene of flareups of civil unrest and dozens of arrests since the Floyd death in late May.

Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her Attorney General, Dana Nessel, are issuing a joint statement claiming the President is trying to suppress the voices of those he doesn’t agree with as un-American.  AG Nessel complains the President would be using his authority to punish those who use their constitutionally guaranteed rights to express views he disagrees with. The Trump administration counters that riots left a half-billion dollars in damages in Minneapolis after days of uncontrolled rioting there. And then the state turned around to request federal disaster aid to pay for it all. That request is being denied. The President, say his aides, is making the point to big-city mayors to control the rioting or the federal government will have no choice.