President Donald Trump had announced he would soon be addressing the nation from the White House Rose Garden, as a 7 p.m. curfew in the city loomed and a mass of law enforcement, including U.S. Secret Service agents, Park Police and National Guardsmen, stood sentry, many dressed in riot gear.
Moments before 6:30 p.m., just when Trump said he would begin his address, the officers suddenly marched forward, directly confronting the protesters as many held up their hands, saying, “Don’t shoot."
Soon, law enforcement officers were aggressively forcing the protesters back, firing tear gas and deploying flash bangs into the crowd to disperse them from the park for seemingly no reason. It was a jarring scene as police in the nation's capital forcefully cleared young men and women gathered legally in a public park on a sunny evening, all of it on live television.
With smoke still wafting and isolated tussles continuing in the crowd, Trump emerged in the Rose Garden for a dramatic split-screen of his own creation.
“I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters," he declared, before demanding that governors across the nation deploy the National Guard "in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets." And he warned that, if they refused, he would deploy the United States military “and quickly solve the problem for them.”
Rabbi Jack Moline, the president of Interfaith Alliance, slammed the fact that peaceful protesters near the White House were gassed and shot with rubber bullets so Trump could hold his photo op.
“Seeing President Trump stand in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church while holding a Bible in response to calls for racial justice — right after using military force to clear peaceful protesters out of the area — is one of the most flagrant misuses of religion I have ever seen," Moline said in a statement. This only underscores the president’s complete lack of compassion for Black Americans and the lethal consequences of racism.”
And the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, to which St. John’s belongs, told CNN Monday night that she was “outraged” by the moment, adding that Trump neither prayed during his visit nor acknowledged the country's agony.
“What on earth did we just witness?” she asked, lamenting “the abuse of sacred symbols of people of faith in this country to justify language, rhetoric" and "an approach to this crisis that is antithetical to everything that we stand for.”
