President Trump said he felt safe and sound holed up in the White House Friday evening, even as thousands of protesters descended outside the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
“Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService. They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe,” Trump said in a tweet congratulating his security detail.
“They let the ‘protesters’ scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard – didn’t know what hit them,” he continued. “Nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action.”
The president openly suggested the protests have not been a spontaneous uprising but rather have been professionally organized.
“The professionally managed so-called “protesters” at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble,” he said.
The White House was forced to go into a temporary lockdown Friday amid protests stemming from the death of George Floyd on at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Monday. Chauvin was fired and charged with third-degree murder this week. The death has sparked waves of violence rioting around the country — including New York City.
DC police reported five arrests, while another woman was taken into custody by the Secret Service after she attempted to breach a barrier. An undisclosed number of Secret Service officers were injured NBC in Washington reported.