Donald Trump’s Call To Imprison Protestors Who Damage Federal Buildings Resurfaces
After Donald Trump’s supporters stormed and breached Capitol Hill on Wednesday, his past comments on the arrest of protesters who damage federal buildings resurfaced on social media.
“Flashback: July 27. Trump called for protesters who damaged federal buildings to get a minimum of 10 years in prison,” MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin tweeted along with an image of Trump’s tweet.
“Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it!” the president wrote.
As reported by Forbes, Trump also allegedly expressed his desire to crack down on protesters during a phone conversation with Maryland governors last year. He reportedly pushed for police to get “much together” on people taking to the streets in the wake of George Floyd’s death and urged law enforcement to “dominate them.”
“It’s a movement, if you don’t put it down it will get worse and worse…The only time it’s successful is when you’re weak and most of you are weak,” he said, according to CNN.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker pushed back on Trump’s remarks on the call and suggested that his rhetoric would only make matters worse. Instead, Pritzker encouraged American leadership to call for calm and make an effort to address the concerns of protesters
At the time, CNN noted Trump had not been seen in public for two days — despite the United States being at the time gripped by what the publication called the “worst unrest in decades.”
Amid the Wednesday clash between protesters and police on Capitol Hill, Trump released a video on Twitter in which he urged his supporters to return home and respect law enforcement. The clip, however, is unavailable at the time of writing as the president’s account was temporarily locked by the social media platform.
As The Inquisitr reported, Donald Trump Jr. also took to Twitter on Wednesday to condemn the March to Save America protesters. His call received some backlash, with some pointing to his previous calls for war over the results of the 2020 election. Both he and his father spoke at a Washington, D.C., rally before protesters stormed the Capitol.
According to Fox 13, Trump called in the National Guard to take control of the protests, which the network claimed led to one person being shot. The network also claimed that tear gas was dispersed in the building while members of Congress in the House of Representatives chamber put on gas masks to prevent inhalation of the chemicals.
