President Trump in an interview with Axios on Monday criticized the Black Lives Matter movement but said he thought the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck “was a disgrace.”
Asked by Axios’s Jonathan Swan whether he has ever met with someone from the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump said that he would but that no one from the movement has ever reached out to him. But, he added:
Black Lives Matter started off to me very badly, because it was ‘Pigs in a blanket, burn them like bacon.’ That was my first, the first time I ever heard of Black [Lives Matter]. That was three, four years ago. ‘Pigs’ meaning policemen — ‘pigs’ is what they’re referring to — ‘in a blanket, fry them like bacon.’ So I got off to a bad start, I got off to a very bad start.
However, he criticized the police’s treatment of George Floyd, the 46-year-old man who died after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly eight minutes while Floyd complained that he could not breathe.
“Certainly the knee on the neck was a disgrace, OK? It was a disgrace,” he said.
On whether police treat African-Americans differently than whites, Trump said, “I hope not.”
“I have seen where there is a difference, and I don’t want there to be a difference. I don’t like that there would be a difference. But with that being said, police have killed white people in a larger number,” he added.
“I don’t know why [there is a difference], but I don’t like it. But I do know this, that police have killed many white people also,” he reiterated. “It speaks to something that to me is unacceptable.”
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.