Anderson Cooper Slams Trump’s Response To George Floyd Protests, Says The ‘World Is Laughing’ At Him
Anderson Cooper isn’t holding back on President Donald Trump. During Anderson Cooper 360°on Monday night, the CNN host went after Trump for his handling of the protests over the death of George Floyd.
“He’s hiding in a bunker and he’s embarrassed that people know that, so what does he have to do? He has to sick police on peaceful protestors so he could make a big show, the little big man, walking to a closed-down church,” Cooper said.
Cooper’s harsh words came after Trump left the White House for St. John’s Episcopal Church on Monday, where he was then photographed holding a Bible. Before Trump arrived at the church, police released tear gas and flash grenades on protesters who had been peaceful up until that point. Trump was also briefly hidden in a White House bunker in response to the protests.
Cooper criticized the photo-op and said that the rest of the world was horrified by what was happening in the U.S.
"He's hiding in a bunker and he's embarrassed… so what does he have to do? He has to sick police on peaceful protesters so he can make a big show of being…the little big man."@AndersonCooper on reports Trump created his own photo-opp because he was angry with news coverage. pic.twitter.com/2ihNq69kCs
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) June 2, 2020
“He always talks about the world laughing, that the world’s laughing at the governors right now. They’re not laughing at the governors, they’re standing in horror over what is happening. The only people that the world is laughing at is the president of the United States,” Cooper continued.
Cooper also said that the photo-op would be funny if the situation weren’t so dire. He then nodded to his duties as a journalist, saying that he planned to be as objective as possible while covering the news, but he “can’t believe” that this is “what we have.” He then clarified, explaining that what he couldn’t believe was that Trump was the nation’s leader.
During the remarks made on Monday, Trump also claimed that he was in favor of peaceful protests. Cooper took issue with that claim, saying that he’s not sure what a peaceful protest is supposed to look like, as many protests that start peaceful wind up being violent because of police action.
In his address on Monday, Trump took a hard stance against the protests and said that the military should be called in when demonstrations descend into violence. He also declared himself the president of “law and order” during the speech, and said that he has instructed governors to deploy the national guard in numbers large enough that they “dominate” the streets. The president continued, saying that if states refused to deploy the national guard, he would deploy the military in order to solve the problem for them.
