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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Oliver Holmes, Helen Sullivan, Maanvi Singh ,Lauren Aratani, Joan E Greve and Martin Pengelly

Seattle police use teargas to disperse peaceful protesters – as it happened

Protesters in Seattle rally against the killing of George Floyd.
Protesters in Seattle rally against the killing of George Floyd. Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

Closing summary

This live blog is now closing. Please follow our new live blog for continuing coverage:

The US Park Police (USPP) has defended its forceful clearing of protesters for a controversial Trump photo-op on Monday.

In a statement, the agency accused “violent protestors” of “throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids”.

It denied that tear gas was used and said officers instead “employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls”.

The statement does not tally with multiple reports on the ground that day. This nearly-two hour video from Reuters shows a peaceful protest pushed back.

An investigative reporter in DC, Nathan Baca, also picked up a canister at the scene that does appear to cause irritation.

German foreign minister says Trump "pouring oil on fire"

Germany’s foreign minister has criticised Donald Trump’s threat to use the US military against protesters in his own country, saying “democrats must never escalate – even with their words”.

“Instead of pouring oil into the fire, we should seek reconciliation”, Heiko Maas told Der Spiegel news website. “Instead of allowing ourselves to be divided, we should stand shoulder to shoulder against radical extremists.”

Earlier in the week, the Social Democrat politician had described the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police as “cruel and shocking”.

One remarkable aspect of these protests has been images of both police and officials “taking the knee” at demonstrations.

The latest high-profile person to do so was Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who knelt with a crowd outside a police headquarters.

As demonstrators yelled that the city’s law enforcement budget should be cut, the mayor told demonstrators: “I hear you. I hear what you are saying about the police.”

No doubt these actions are hugely symbolic – they stem from athletes, notably NFL star Colin Kaepernick, kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality. Trump and his supporters have painted those taking the knee as unpatriotic.

In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was moved by seeing NYPD Chief of Department Terry Monahan take the knee (video below):

Blasio tweeted about it, saying: “Moments like that are how I know we will find a way through.”

However, it is unclear what effect these actions of some police and public figures will have on protesters, who want to end systemic and institutionalised racism – rather than simply convince individuals.

For example, in Los Angeles, after Garcetti’s knelt, hundreds still gathered outside his house and protested.

For those of you just joining us after a news break, it’s worth taking a look this photo of camouflaged and masked US troops at the Lincoln Memorial in the capital. No doubt this picture, taken on Tuesday evening, will become one of the many defining images of the protest movement.

Members of the DC National Guard stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as demonstrators participate in a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd.
Members of the DC National Guard stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as demonstrators participate in a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Derrick Johnson, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), has written a very blunt piece in the Guardian, which is worth reading in full but here’s an extract:

The expendability of Black lives is not a flaw in the system; it is the system. We are meant to die or, at the very least, we are not meant to be protected, to be respected, to be valued, to be considered fully human. That is how racism works, and it has operated efficiently throughout American history.

It is no accident that we disproportionately work in the lowest paying jobs, and live in communities where the water is unsafe to drink and the air unfit to breathe, where polluters ply their trades, where schools are starved of resources, where green space or even a grocery store can be hard to find.

All of this has led us to a new statistic on dying: we are 3.5 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than white people. Although Black people are only 13% of the population, we constitute about twice that percentage of US coronavirus cases. This is not because the coronavirus seeks us by color; it is because we suffer from an underlying condition.

For the column, click below:

Protesters in Seattle can be clearly heard in this video shouting, “Don’t shoot”.

Footage posted by Shauna Sowersby, a local reporter and photographer, on Twitter.

It is after midnight now in the city.

More from Seattle:

Protesters are running away from police, according to a Seattle Times reporter at the scene.

Good day/night,

Oliver Holmes here again, blogging deep into the night across the US.

I’m logging on as police in Seattle have begun dispersing protests there, which had apparently been peaceful all day.

Casey Martin, an NPR reporter, is tweeting from the city, where he says protests dwindled in size over the evening before police started using pepper spray and flashbacks. The crowds threw water bottles.

Earlier, Martin had filmed a large group of marchers:

We will keep following.

As always, please do get in contact with me if you think something is worth sharing, and also for any questions or feedback. You can reach me via Twitter or on email: oliver.holmes [at] theguardian.com

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thank you for following along and, as always for the tips and feedback on Twitter and via email.

My colleague Oliver Holmes is picking up the live coverage – as we’re hearing more reports of police dispersing protestors in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.

Police are dispersing crowds in Portland using teargas, the Oregonian reports:

Arial footage from KATU ABC 2 news:

Updated

The District of Colombia National Guard is investigating the use of helicopters that flew over protesters in Washington, DC yesterday in what appeared to be an attempt to disperse the crowds.

The DCNG announced in a statement on its website:

DCNG is conducting an investigation into the June 1 low-flying maneuvers by its helicopters to ensure all involved complied with applicable procedures and safety regulations.

...

As part of the investigation, the DCNG is looking into the use of the medical evacuation helicopter as part of the Joint Task Force DC operation.

In the announcement, DCNG commanding general William J Walker is quoted as saying, “I hold all members of the District of Columbia National Guard to the highest of standards. We live and work in the District, and we are dedicated to the service of our nation,”

“I have directed an immediate investigation into the June 1 incident.”

Updated

Here is the video of that incident:

New York City police officers surrounded, shoved and yelled expletives at two Associated Press journalists covering protests Tuesday in the latest aggression against members of the media during a week of unrest around the country, AP reports.

Portions of the incident were captured on video by videojournalist Robert Bumsted, who was working with photographer Maye-E Wong to document the protests in lower Manhattan over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The video shows more than a half-dozen officers confronting the journalists as they filmed and took photographs of police ordering protesters to leave the area near Fulton and Broadway shortly after an 8pm curfew took effect.

Both journalists were wearing AP identification and identified themselves as media.

NYPD officials said they would review the incident as soon as possible.

Journalists have faced aggressive police and protesters during demonstrations across the US over the killing of Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a white officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck.

Updated

Here is the full story on the Paris protests inspired by demonstrations in the US:

Clashes broke out between police and protesters in Paris on Tuesday after around 20,000 people defied a ban to rally over the 2016 death of a black man in police custody, galvanised by US demonstrations against racism and deadly police violence, AP reports.

Protesters jump over the gates of the Martin Luther King park, northwest of Paris, to escape tear gas as they demonstrate near Paris courthouse against police violence on June 2, 2020.
Protesters jump over the gates of the Martin Luther King park, northwest of Paris, to escape tear gas as they demonstrate near Paris courthouse against police violence on June 2, 2020. Photograph: Michel Rubinel/AFP/Getty Images

The protesters used slogans from the American protest movement to call for justice for Adama Traore, whose death four years ago has been a rallying cause against police brutality in France.

The demonstration, which came after the release of two differing medical reports into the cause of Traore’s death, had been prohibited by police citing a coronavirus ban on gatherings of more than 10 people.

The Huffington Post reports that Native American democrat Paulette Jordan has won the Idaho Senate Primary. Should she win in November, she will be the state’s first female and first indigenous US senator:

It’s a long-shot effort by Jordan in deep red Idaho, but if anything, the race will be a fascinating study in contrasts between her and Risch, who could not be more different.

Jordan, 40, is a Native American progressive Democrat who would be the state’s first female and first indigenous U.S. senator if she pulls off a win in November. Her priorities are strengthening health care and protecting public lands, and she is a forceful advocate of LGBTQ rights and women’s reproductive rights. She was previously a two-term state legislator ― she defeated a Republican for the seat ― and the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018. She is not rich. She believes in science.

Paulette Jordan.
Paulette Jordan. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/Reuters

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

The Washington Post’s Rebecca Tan reports that, after a relatively peaceful day of demonstrations, law enforcement “have started firing pepper balls and chemical agents at the small group of remaining protestors” near the White House:

Updated

People in countries around the world march in memory of George Floyd

Protests in memory of George Floyd’s death, and against police brutality in the US as well as other countries, have sprung up around the world. Here are just a few.

In Paris, France, clashes broke out between police and protesters in Paris on Tuesday after around 20,000 people defied a ban to rally over the 2016 death of Adama Traore while in police custody in Paris, galvanised by the US demonstrations:

A demonstrator holds a banner in front of a burning barricade following the intervention of security forces in a protest against police brutality at the “Tribunal de Paris” courthouse on June 2, 2020 in Paris, France.
A demonstrator holds a banner in front of a burning barricade following the intervention of security forces in a protest against police brutality at the “Tribunal de Paris” courthouse on June 2, 2020 in Paris, France. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Liverpool, UK:

Sydney, Australia:

Protesters wearing protective face mask and holding a placards march on Parliament House from the Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park on 2 June, 2020 in Sydney, Australia.
Protesters wearing protective face mask and holding a placards march on Parliament House from the Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park on 2 June, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Speed Media/REX/Shutterstock

Nairobi, Kenya:

Supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement shout slogans and hold placards as they protest against the police brutality in Kenya and USA and in memory of George Floyd in Nairobi, Kenya, 2 June 2020.
Supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement shout slogans and hold placards as they protest against the police brutality in Kenya and USA and in memory of George Floyd in Nairobi, Kenya, 2 June 2020. Photograph: Daniel Irungu/EPA

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

Mothers, who said their sons were killed during police operations, hold a banner with the photos of their sons, during a protest against crimes committed by the police against black people in the favelas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, May 31, 2020.
Mothers, who said their sons were killed during police operations, hold a banner with the photos of their sons, during a protest against crimes committed by the police against black people in the favelas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, May 31, 2020. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP

The fence surrounding the White House, erected in the wake of the protests, has been decorated, New York Magazine’s White House Correspondent Olivia Nuzzi reports:

Other protestors have tried to tear down the fence, Nuzzi tweeted:

Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest news from across the country for the next few hours – please do get in touch on Twitter with questions, feedback, and, of course, news from wherever you are.

I’m @helenrsullivan.

Alternatively, send me an email: helen.sullivan[at]theguardian.com

Today so far

  • The US army was poised at the outskirts of DC, and approximately 1,600 troops were moved to the region, per the Pentagon. The military will not be engaging in law enforcement, a spokesperson for the Pentagon said. The president has threatened to deploy military — in order to do so, he would have to invoke a Civil War-era act.
  • Protests continued in DC and across the country — from Los Angeles to Portland to Minneapolis to New York. Thousands defied curfews to protest against police brutality.
  • There were elections in eight states and Washington DC. It was another big test of vote by mail, with many states expanding absentee voting options, though many Americans did line up to cast ballots in person today.
  • The controversial Iowa Republican congressman Steve King was been ousted in Tuesday’s primary, losing his re-election race to the state senator Randy Feenstra. King previously questioned why white nationalism was offensive and was ousted from committee positions in Congress following racist comments. But Feenstra’s policy platform, which emphasizes a hard line against immigration, is not so different from King’s.
  • The use of low-flying helicopters, one of which was printed with the Red Cross logo, against protestors in DC is being investigated by the National Guard. An amped law enforcement presence and the use of aggressive tactics against protestors in the nation’s capital and across the country are being widely criticized.
  • Attorney general William Barr personally ordered the expansion of the perimeter outside the White House, resulting in the forcible removal of peaceful protesters, according to a new report. The Washington Post reported that Barr called for the protesters to be moved moments before Trump spoke at the White House yesterday.
  • The state of Minnesota has filed a civil rights charge against the Minneapolis Police Department in response to the killing of George Floyd. The state cited “unlawful race-based policing” in the charge, which was announced by governor Tim Walz at a press conference this afternoon.
  • Joe Biden sharply criticized Trump’s handling of the protests in a Philadelphia speech. “The president of the United States must be part of the solution, not the problem,” Biden said. “This president today is part of the problem and accelerates it.” The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is also expected to attend Floyd’s funeral next week.
  • The archdiocese of Washington said it was “baffling and reprehensible” to allow Trump to visit the Saint John Paul II National Shrine today. As Trump traveled to the Washington site, which is run by the Knights of Columbus, Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement, “I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”
  • Trump said the RNC will seek a new venue after the governor of North Carolina told Republicans they should prepare for a “scaled-down convention” due to coronavirus. “The people of North Carolina do not know what the status of COVID-19 will be in August, so planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing and face coverings is a necessity,” Cooper said in a letter to the top convention organizer and the RNC chairwoman.

Steve King — Republican congressman with history of racist rhetoric — is defeated in primary

From my colleague Daniel Strauss:

The controversial Iowa Republican congressman Steve King has been ousted in Tuesday’s primary, losing his re-election race to the state senator Randy Feenstra.

King had faced the re-election fight of his life. The nine-term conservative congressman, who was repeatedly reprimanded by leaders in his own party for racist rhetoric and interactions with white nationalists, found himself in a nightmare situation for an incumbent congressman.

He had been stripped of his committee assignments, abandoned by more mainstream Republicans and chastised by party leadership. He had even lost support from prominent conservatives in Iowa.

Feenstra declared victory on Tuesday evening, promising he’d deliver “results for the families, farmers and communities of Iowa”.

Thousands in Portland marched onto the Burnside Bridge. Once there, they lay face down with their hands behind their backs — symbolizing the restraint that officers used on George Floyd before he was killed, the Oregonian reports.

Medical students in lab coats, carrying signs that read “White Coats for Black Lives” assembled in Portland’s Pioneer Square and Caesar The No Drama Llama also reportedly turned up in solidarity.

Updated

More election results:

Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, won an easy nomination in the Democratic primary of Maryland’s 5th district. He’s held the seat for 40 years.

Yvette Herrell won the Republican primary in New Mexico’s 2nd District — she’ll take on on Xochitl Torres Small in November.

Joe Biden handily won the primaries in Indiana, Idaho, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Dakota. With all his Democratic opponents out of the race, no surprise there.

Updated

The Guardian’s Ankita Rao reports from Brooklyn:

Thousands of people were blockaded on Manhattan Bridge, as the protests against police brutality led past the 8 pm curfew. With police on both ends of the bridge, protestors from Brooklyn said they waited at the barricades for more than two hours to try to enter Manhattan.

“They [the NYPD] promised to let us through and told us 10 minutes,” said one Brooklyn resident who asked not to be identified. “But then time passed and all they did was get lots of NYPD trucks. Their promise was not to let us through but to manipulate citizens for no reason.” As protestors waited, wondering if they would be arrested and how they would get home, posts on social media started to appear online.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which also connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, was barricaded as well.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the situation was unsafe, and that she was coming to the scene. Mayor De Blasio also visited the Barclays Center, where many of the week’s protests have originated, and said it was a calm situation. At around 11 pm the protestors from Brooklyn decided to turn around and walk back.

“It was an incredibly peaceful protest, no one did anything divisive or provocative,” said Hannah Jayanti, a Brooklyn resident who had taken her bicycle to the protest to help create a barrier between the police and protestors. At midnight, there were still protestors stuck in either borough attempting to get home.

Updated

Steve King's opponent declares victory in Iowa

The AP has not yet called the election, though King is lagging behind in the Republican primary to represent Iowa’s fourth district. His loss in this election will cap his controversial 9-year stint in Congress. State senator Randy Feenstra put out a statement claiming victory.

During the campaign, Feenstra attacked King’s inability to govern after he was barred from House committees for his racist rhetoric.

Feenstra’s platform is otherwise quite similar to King’s — and includes hardline anti-immigration policies.

Updated

Councilwoman Ella Jones was elected mayor of Ferguson, becoming the first African American and first woman to lead the city.

In August 2014, the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager, in Ferguson sparked nationwide protests against police brutality. When the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that a grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the white officer who shot 12 rounds at Brown, another round of protests began.

Jones has said she will continue to implement changes to address the policing issues to sparked the 2014 protests.

In Los Angeles, thousands took to the streets. Mayor Eric Garcetti took a knee with protestors, even as crowds chanted, “defund the police”.

A protester holds a placard reading ‘Prosecute Killer Cops’ in front of Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti’s house.
A protester holds a placard reading ‘Prosecute Killer Cops’ in front of Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti’s house. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/EPA

Los Angeles County was under a sweeping curfew, and activist organizing demonstrations today kept plans quiet to avoid tipping off police.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore said at a news conference yesterday looters over the weekend were “capitalizing” on the death of George Floyd.“We didn’t have protests last night — we had criminal acts,” he said, “His death is on their hands as much as it is those officers.”

Moore apologized minutes later, saying he “misspoke”.

Protestors today chanted, “Fire Michel Moore! Fire Michel Moore!”

Thousands defy curfew for peaceful march in New York

In New York, thousands of protesters defied curfew and remained on the streets, as officers began making arrests.

Front line health care workers take-a-knee and raise their fist in solidarity during a Justice for George Floyd protest and rally in Times Square New York.
Front line healthcare workers take a knee and raise their fists in solidarity during a Justice for George Floyd protest and rally in Times Square. Photograph: Brian Branch Price/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

The police blocked off crowds making their way from Brooklyn across the Manhattan Bridge. There was an officer-involved shooting in which no officers were injured, according to the NYPD, which provided no further detail.

The force has been criticized for its aggressive tactics and use of force against protestors through the weekend and on Monday. The city’s Democratic mayor and New York’s Democratic governor have faced pressure from the president to put a stop to vandalism and looting during the demonstrations.

“The NYPD and the mayor did not do their job last night,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a briefing in Albany. “Look at the videos. It was a disgrace.”

Cuomo, who has often clashed with Mayor Bill De Blasio, brought up the possibility of deploying the national guard over the mayor’s objections.

Updated

Even as protests rage on, eight states and Washington DC are holding elections today. It’ll be another big test of vote by mail, with many states expanding absentee voting options, though many Americans did line up to cast ballots in person today.

Polls have closed in Iowa, where Republican Steve King, the conservative congressman who has been abandoned by the Republican establishment over his racist rhetoric and interaction with white nationalists, is up for re-election. King has trailed in the polls, but may still have a chance as the incumbent.

Updated

The FBI found no indication of antifa involvement in Sunday’s violence, according to reporting in the Nation.

In documents leaked to the Nation’s Ken Klippenstein, the FBI’s Washington Field Office indicated it had “has no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence” in the violence that occurred in DC.

Read on:

That same day, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he would designate “Antifa” a terrorist organization, even though the government has no existing authority to declare a domestic group a terrorist organization, and antifa is not an organized group.

Attorney General William Barr said in a statement, “The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.”

The FBI report, however, states that “based on CHS [Confidential Human Source] canvassing, open source/social media partner engagement, and liaison, FBI WFO has no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence.” The statement followed a list of violent acts like throwing bricks at police and the discovery of a backpack containing explosive materials, which were flagged by the FBI under a “Key Updates” section of the report.

Updated

Shooting reported in Brooklyn

WABC reports that at least five people were injured during a shooting in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. The injured reportedly include two NYPD officers.

Police told the station that all five people were taken to local hospitals.

About 1,600 US army troops were moved to the DC region, according to the Pentagon.

“Active duty elements are postured on military bases in the National Capitol Region but are not in Washington DC,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said in a statement.

The troops “are not participating in defense support to civil authority operations”, Hoffman said. The president would have to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to deploy the US military to suppress civil disorder inside the US.

Even though the troops are not acting as law enforcement, their presence has had a chilling effect on protesters. The stationing of troops and the military tactics used against protesters in DC have drawn criticism. Yesterday, low-flying helicopters snapped tree branches and frightened demonstrators with a deafening roar. One of the helicopters had Red Cross markings and the show of force is being investigated by the national guard, according to the Washington Post.

Updated

Thousands of protesters have rallied peacefully outside of the White House on Tuesday evening, chanting “keep the peace” as night grew dark.

The crowd grew thinner after 8pm, an hour after the capital’s curfew had set in, but several hundred remained outside of the fence.

When one protester climbed a lamp post and removed a street sign he was roundly booed by others. “It’s not what we’re about,” George “TJ” Pierce, one of the protesters in the park, told the Associated Press.

Demonstrators gather in front of a fence surrounding Lafayette Park outside the White House on Tuesday evening
Demonstrators gather in front of a fence surrounding Lafayette Park outside the White House on Tuesday evening. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Demonstrators near Lafayette park on Tuesday evening
Demonstrators near Lafayette park on Tuesday evening. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images
Hundreds of demonstrators marching toward Lafayette Park and the White House
Hundreds of demonstrators marching toward Lafayette Park and the White House. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Updated

Analysis: Trump has normalised mayhem and the US is paying the price

The sheer tumult of the Trump era, the unceasing torrent of events that were unthinkable even hours before, has left a nation constantly off balance, unable to find its bearing and grasp how far it has traveled.

The developments of the past 24 hours were a reminder of how slippery the downward slope has been.

More than a hundred thousand Americans are dead from a pandemic after the government’s botched response; there are armoured cars and troops outside Washington metro stations; men in combat gear carrying sniper rifles were seen perched in the open door of a helicopter flying low over the commercial district. A military chopper buzzed a crowd of demonstrators so close to the ground they were buffeted around by the wind from the rotor, a dispersal technique learned in counter-insurgencies abroad.

On Monday, an entirely peaceful protest was driven out of a city square in front of the White House with teargas, baton charges and mounted police, so Trump could pose in front of a church with a Bible.

A priest and a seminarian, who had been distributing water and hand sanitizer to protesters from the steps of St John’s Episcopal, were driven away by police with helmets and riot shields to create an uncluttered tableau. A Bible was procured for Trump from inside the church for him to hold aloft. Journalists asked if it was his Bible. “It’s a Bible,” he replied.

The rate of fresh affronts has often outpaced the capacity to digest – or even describe – them. Peaceful protesters, journalists, a young African American man pleading for mutual understanding, shop owners, residents are being targeted for arbitrary arrest or police beatings or both – especially if they are black.

Here’s a view of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC this evening:

A former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, condemned the use of force against protestors in order to clear the way for a photo op. In an op-ed published by The Atlantic, Mullen, who served as the highest-ranking military officer in the country from 2001 to 2011, wrote:

It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.

Whatever Trump’s goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.

There was little good in the stunt.

While no one should ever condone the violence, vandalism, and looting that has exploded across our city streets, neither should anyone lose sight of the larger and deeper concerns about institutional racism that have ignited this rage.

Updated

Trump says Republicans seeking new venue for national convention

Donald Trump has tweeted that Republicans are seeking a new venue for the Republican national convention, after initial considering North Carolina.

Earlier, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper wrote it was “very unlikely” that the state could permit a packed convention in Charlotte this summer.

“The people of North Carolina do not know what the status of COVID-19 will be in August, so planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing and face coverings is a necessity,” Cooper wrote to Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel.

Updated

Opinion: In 1919, the state failed to protect black Americans. A century later, it’s still failing

Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, writes for The Guardian:

In 1919, as soldiers returned from the first world war, many white Americans saw African American men in military uniforms for the first time. That sight, and the challenge it posed to the political, social and economic order, was deeply threatening to them. Groups of armed white men hunted down and slaughtered hundreds of black Americans across the country. The wave of lynchings and race riots came to be known as the Red Summer.

The black community did its best to fight back, without protection from the state. In some cases, police actively participated in the lynchings. The US attorney general, A Mitchell Palmer, claimed that leftwing radicals were behind the uprisings – a false charge and one that further endangered African American lives. Palmer worked for President Woodrow Wilson, an ardent segregationist who screened Birth of a Nation in the White House and praised the Ku Klux Klan even as it deployed terrorism to keep blacks away from the voting booth. Wilson had been silent while whites slaughtered African Americans in East St Louis in 1917, and he did little to nothing in 1919 when they again attacked and killed black people, this time on an even more horrific and grisly scale.

When African Americans fought back, when they protested, when they made clear they would not quietly accept the destruction of their lives, Palmer mobilized the power of the federal government to brand black unrest as the work of the enemy of the state – communists. It was his version of peace without justice. To do this he ignored the destructive and violent white supremacy that his president had helped unleash. He remained unconcerned about the bold, brazen killing of black people. And he had no qualms about a criminal justice system in which being black meant the presumption of guilt.

More than 100 years later, in the wake of the brutal, merciless killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor – not to mention an incident in which a white woman attempted to put a black birdwatcher in the crosshairs of the NYPD – our current attorney general, Bill Barr, does not appear to see injustice. Instead, he sounds much like his ancient predecessor, A Mitchell Palmer.

A former undersecretary of defense, James Miller, condemned the president and the defense secretary for using force against protesters in his resignation letter from the Defense Science Board.

The Washington Post published Miller’s resignation letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

In it, Miller said that Trump’s decision to clear protesters with force in order to pose for a photo “violated his oath to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ as well as the First Amendment ‘right of the people peaceably to assemble.’”

Miller wrote:

When I joined the Board in early 2014, after leaving government service as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, I again swore an oath of office, one familiar to you, that includes the commitment to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States . . . and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

You recited that same oath on July 23, 2019, when you were sworn in as Secretary of Defense. On Monday, June 1, 2020, I believe that you violated that oath. Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets — not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op. You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo.

President Trump’s actions Monday night violated his oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as well as the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble.” You may not have been able to stop President Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.

Updated

In Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan spoke with protesters and promised to meet organizers tomorrow afternoon to create a plan for reform. Police chief Carmen Best spoke to the crowd as well.

“I understand the hurt and the anger that everyone feels, especially after the death of George Floyd,” she said, according to the Seattle Times. “As a black woman, I feel the same pain you feel and just because I wear the uniform, that doesn’t change that.”

But the city’s aggressive tactics against protesters drew criticism after videos of police escalating tensions, spraying chemical agents and deploying flash-bang grenades circulated social media.

Updated

Mark Zuckerberg is standing by his decision to allow Donald Trump to threaten violence against George Floyd protesters on the platform despite harsh criticism from civil rights leaders and public dissent from his own employees, including a public resignation.

In a video conference with staff on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said that his decision to not remove Trump’s warning on social media on Friday that “when the looting starts the shooting start” was “tough” but “pretty thorough”, the New York Times reported. The company usually holds an all-staff meeting on Thursdays, but the session was moved up to address growing discontent among employees, hundreds of whom staged a “walkout” on Monday by requesting time off.

“I knew that I would have to separate out my personal opinion,” he told employees, according to the report. “Knowing that when we made this decision we made, it was going to lead to a lot of people upset inside the company, and the media criticism we were going to get.”

Anger at Facebook has only grown since Zuckerberg announced on Friday evening that the platform would not to take any action against Trump’s post, which quoted a racist 1960s police chief. Twitter deemed a tweet with the same language dangerous and chose to hide it behind a warning label “in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts”. But though Zuckerberg acknowledged the statement’s racist historical antecedent, he said that the company has a policy of allowing state actors to warn the public about the use of force.

This reasoning has garnered scorn from US civil rights leaders, three of whom spoke with Zuckerberg and his top lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg on Monday evening. “We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations,” said Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robinson – heads of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Color of Change – in a joint statement.

“He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters,” the added. “Mark is setting a very dangerous precedent for other voices who would say similar harmful things on Facebook.”

Zuckerberg has also faced continued public criticism from employees – a highly unusual occurrence for the company.

“It’s crystal clear today that leadership refuses to stand with us,” the engineer Brandon Dail tweeted Tuesday.

Representative Will Hurd, a Republican of Texas and the only black Republican in the House of Representatives, is participating in the protests in Houston.

Updated

While most protesters have marched against police brutality and racist policing, a few have turned up on horseback.

In Houston, members of an urban trail riding club drew cheers as they rode in and raised their fists. At least one of the demonstrators was wearing a shirt that read “Black Cowboys Matter.”

Earlier today, my colleague Abené Clayton interviewed Brianna Noble, who rode her horse into the George Floyd protest in Oakland on Friday:

Noble hadn’t planned to ride her horse, Dapper Dan, into the center of Friday evening’s protests in the city of Oakland. “It wasn’t a very planned thing,” the 25 year-old Bay Area native told the Guardian. “I was just pissed, sitting at home and seeing the video of George Floyd. I felt helpless and thought to myself: ‘I’m just another protester if I go down there alone, but no one can ignore a black woman sitting on top of a horse.’”

“I know that what makes headlines is breaking windows and people smashing things,” Noble said. “So I thought: ‘Let’s go out and give the media something to look at that is positive and change the narrative.’”

Noble, who trains feral and wild horses, also works to change narratives in the equestrian world which, in California, is majority white and has a high financial barrier to entry. She hopes that, in addition to contributing to the movement against police brutality toward black and brown people, she will become the first black woman to do horse jumping in the Olympics and bring low-income kids into the horse community.

“I don’t want to be known for just walking down Broadway one time,” Noble said. “I want to make a lasting impact in my community for black and brown people.

“When you’re black it doesn’t matter how loud you scream or how deep your words are, nobody would listen,” she continued. “So to now have found this amazing pedestal – my horse Dapper Dan to sit upon – and not have to say a word is amazing.”

Updated

A curfew is now in effect in New York City - a curfew which hundreds of anti-police violence protesters are defying.

Hundreds of people were still gathered outside Trump International hotel, at the south-east corner of Central Park, at 8pm. Protesters are now walking north from the hotel, many shouting: “Fuck your curfew.”

It’s going to be a difficult journey home for many, as ride-sharing services and even CitiBikes have ceased operating.

Police vans began massing close to the Trump hotel before 8pm, but as the curfew came in officers were yet to take action.

  • This post was amended on Tuesday 2 June. An earlier version incorrectly stated that the subway had stopped running.

Updated

In Dallas, protesters are dispersing ahead of curfew, according to local reporters.

Updated

Minneapolis public schools are terminating their contract with the city’s police department following the death of George Floyd.

The city’s public school board unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday night that will end the district’s contract with the Minneapolis police department to use officers to provide school security. The Minneapolis superintendent said he would begin work on an alternative plan to keep the district’s more than 35,000 students safe in the coming school year.

“We cannot continue to be in partnership with an organization that has the culture of violence and racism that the Minneapolis police department has historically demonstrated,” Nelson Inz, one of the school board members, said. “We have to stand in solidarity with our black students.”

While the vote does not bring justice for Floyd, “it will show that meaningful change is possible,” Nathaniel Genene, the school board’s student representative, said.

Genene said an online survey of Minneapolis students had received more than 1,500 responses, and about 90% of them supported terminating the district’s contract with the police.

Here’s Donald Trump’s latest.

Protesters, clergy members and journalists confronted by teargas, rubber bullets and other aggressive policing tactics yesterday might disagree with the president’s statement.

Updated

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been granted authority to conduct surveillance of protestors, according to a report from Buzzfeed News:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been granted sweeping new authority to “conduct covert surveillance” and collect intelligence on people participating in protests over the murder of George Floyd, according to a two-page memorandum obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Floyd’s death “has spawned widespread protests across the nation, which, in some instances, have included violence and looting,” said the DEA memo. “Police agencies in certain areas of the country have struggled to maintain and/or restore order.” The memo requests the extraordinary powers on a temporary basis, and on Sunday afternoon a senior Justice Department official signed off.

Federal agencies have conducted surveillance of protest groups before - in 2015, the Department of Homeland Security monitored activists on Twitter. The FBI monitored Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011. And of course, antiwar protesters were heavily monitored during the 1960s and 70s.

The Guardian has not yet independently verified BuzzFeed’s reporting.

Updated

Protests in New York continue

Hundreds of US cities have set curfews this evening, but as 7pm passed on the east coast many rallies showed no sign of slowing down.

In New York, where a curfew is set to start at 8pm, thousands of people were marching to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. A separate group filled Union Square in Manhattan.

Updated

In Washington, DC, protests have continued despite an amplified policing and military presence.

Tens of thousands gathered on Tuesday evening and stayed out past the 7pm curfew. Demonstrators set up aid stations, handing out water and other supplies. Many came prepped with masks and goggles to shield them against teargas and pepper spray.

US army poised on outskirts of Washington - reports

US troops from the 82nd airborne division have been moved from their base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the outskirts of Washington DC, according to multiple reports from unnamed defense department officials.

Around 700 members of the 82nd are now poised at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and Fort Belvoir in Virginia, the Associated Press reports. Joint Base Andrews is where Air Force One takes off when the president goes on trips and is minutes from the White House, just outside the boundary of the capital.

In addition, 1,400 more soldiers are ready to be mobilized within an hour, AP writes, according to two defense department officials, who are not named.

The soldiers are armed and have riot gear, and they also have bayonets, the agency reports.

It is not clear if this is (almost literal) saber-rattling from the president, who has been talking hardline on law and order, displaying hardware in order to intimidate protesters, or if those troops will really be seen on the streets of Washington.

The president has the jurisdiction to send US troops into the federal capital pretty freely, without invoking legislation or seeking permission as would be the case with a state.

The New York Times reported that US army helicopters buzzed the District last night at rooftop level in a deafening, blasting “show of force” that scattered protesters. This was not long after peaceful protesters were violently swept from outside the White House by police, so that Donald Trump could stage a photo opportunity outside the nearby St John’s “Church of the Presidents”.

The NYT also informed its readers that:

The nation’s capital is the one jurisdiction where the Army can deploy without needing approval from a governor. So President Trump, declaring that “the destruction of peaceful life and the spilling of blood is against humanity and God,” ordered the Army to deploy an active-duty military police battalion for Washington.

Updated

Here’s the latest tally of press freedom violations during the demonstrations against police brutality, from the US Press Freedom Tracker:

Elizabeth Warren is among the demonstrators at the White House protest, along with her husband and dog, according to reporters at the scene.

Curfews in cities coast to coast

Hundreds of US cities have imposed curfews to keep the peace during a week of large scale peaceful protest but also volatility and patches of violent unrest - with examples of aggressive over-policing of some demonstrations and under-policing of some outbreaks of looting.

Demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd chant and hold up placards in Washington, DC, earlier today. Police violently cleared peaceful protests from the area outside the Church of the Presidents near the White House on Monday evening even though curfew was still half an hour away. It later became clear they had been moved to allow Donald Trump to walk to the church for a photo opportunity.
Demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd chant and hold up placards in Washington, DC, earlier today. Police violently cleared peaceful protests from the area outside the Church of the Presidents near the White House on Monday evening even though curfew was still half an hour away. It later became clear they had been moved to allow Donald Trump to walk to the church for a photo opportunity. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

Mandated curfew is a tactic that gives law enforcement sweeping arrest powers but is frequently flouted and criticized as being unconstitutional, the Associated Press points out.

From New York City to Fargo, North Dakota, cities large and small have put curfews in place, in some cases for the first time in decades, sending out emergency notices on phones and highway signs urging people to stay off the streets.

But the deadlines aren’t hard and fast many of them have exceptions for people heading to and from work, reporters, public transportation and even people buying groceries.

Many protesters and citizens have routinely disregarded the restrictions, and police have allowed peaceful demonstrations to continue after curfew while focusing their attention on outbreaks of chaos or violence.

A curfew allows police the ability without any other reason to threaten to arrest or detain crowds of protesters that linger or groups that appear to be a danger to order.

New York City put in place a large-scale curfew for what appeared to be the first time in nearly 80 years this week as groups vandalized buildings and stole from stores. The curfew was originally 11 pm, but Mayor Bill de Blasio rolled it back to 8 pm, before the sun goes down.

“If you choose to protest today, do it in the daytime hours and then please go home because we have work to do to keep a peaceful city,” de Blasio said.

Curfews have been installed in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Detroit, Denver. Philadelphia and hundreds of other cities and communities large and small, coast to coast and north to south across the country.

In northern California, Sacramento city councilman Steve Hansen said the city’s 8pm curfew “really is to keep people from coming sort of to gawk at what’s going on and keep the looky-loos away.”

The curfews also come on the heels of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders imposed during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Parisians protest police brutality in their city and in the US

In Paris, some 20,000 people defied a ban on large gatherings to protest against police brutality. Law enforcement used tear gas and rubber bullets against demonstrators, who set up burning barricades.

The death of Adama Traoré in 2016 was a rallying cry — Traoré, 24, was apprehended after a dispute over an identity check. An officer testified that police pinned down Traoré using their body weight before the young man was transported to the police station where he died. He was still handcuffed when paramedics arrived. The officers involved were exonerated.

His sister, Assa Traoré, spoke at the demonstration. “Today we are not just talking about the fight of the Traoré family,” she said, according to AFP. “It is the fight for everyone. When we fight for George Floyd, we fight for Adama Traoré.”

Gatherings of more than 10 people are currently banned in Paris, due to the pandemic.

Updated

Justin Trudeau responded to a question about Donald Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests across the US, including the issue of the US president threatening military action against demonstrators, with, at first, a 20-second-plus silence, the like of which is unusual for the Canadian prime minister, as he gathered his thoughts.

Then he gave an answer that began by saying: “We all watch in horror and consternation what is going on in the United States” then went on to address entrenched racial injustice in the US but also in Canada.

He said: “There is systemic discrimination in Canada...it’s something that many of us do not see...but it is a lived reality.”

This post replaces an earlier, shorter one that sought simply to draw attention to the long silence at the beginning of Trudeau’s response. But that was not clear and this account aims to capture the event and the context more fully and, therefore, fairly.

Updated

George Floyd’s family addresses reporters: 'I want justice for him'

George Floyd’s six-year-old daughter, Gianna, and her mother, Roxie Washington, just made their first public appearance at a press conference in Minneapolis.

“I wanted everyone to know that this is what those officers took from…” Washington said while holding back sobs, her daughter glancing up at her. “At the end of the day, they get to go home and be with their families. Gianna does not have a father. He will never see her grow up, graduate. He will never walk her down the aisle.”

“I’m here for my baby and I’m here for George, because I want justice for him. I want justice for him because he was good. No matter what anybody thinks,” she said, pointing down to her daughter. “And this is the proof that he was a good man.”

Updated

Thousands of protesters have spent the past five hours marching north through Manhattan as protests against police brutality continue in New York City.

Waving signs in support of George Floyd, people made the six mile journey from One Police Plaza, in lower Manhattan, to the Upper East Side. At 5.30pm thousands protesters filled a street close to Gracie Mansion, the official home of NYC mayor Bill de Blasio.

In the past few days protests in cities across the US have been marred by violence, as police have used tear gas and force to dispel crowds. Today the police presence has been small, with officers apparently happy to let protesters take over city streets and blocks.

Joe Biden is seeing a fundraising surge in the midst of nationwide protests.

Biden’s campaign said they noticed an uptick in donations since protests started last week. CNBC reported that fundraisers say they each raised $200,000 to $1 million for the campaign in the last few days. One fundraiser who focuses on the finance industry said he’s seeing an increase of up to 35%.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and an associate of former FBI Director James Comey, told CNBC that he made a rare campaign donation of $2,800 – the maximum individual contribution to the campaign - because he disapproves of the way Trump is handling the protests.

“We have a president who is energetically attacking and trying to destroy the professional national security apparatus of the country and under those circumstances I don’t feel a stance of political neutrality is appropriate,” he told CNBC.

The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump super PAC run by a group of Never-Trump Republicans, said May was its best fundraising month since the PAC was created early in the 2020 election.

This is Lauren Aratani in New York taking over for Joan E Greve.

A Monmouth University poll showed that nearly three quarters of Americans say the country is on the wrong track – an all-time low in the seven years the poll has been administered.

When asked if the country is going in the right direction or whether it’s headed off track, 74% of respondents who answered the poll May 28 through June 1 said it was heading off track.

The poll also found a marked change in public opinion on racial disparities of police excessive force. A majority of Americans – 57% – say that police officers facing a difficult or dangerous situation are more likely to use excessive force if the culprit is black. In comparison, when the same question was asked after the police killing of Alton Sterling in 2016, 34% of Americans said excessive force would most likely be used if the culprit is black. The number of white Americans who agreed to this has also increased to 49, up from 25% of white Americans in 2016.

Updated

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My colleagues, Lauren Aratani and Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Attorney general William Barr personally ordered the expansion of the perimeter outside the White House, resulting in the forcible removal of peaceful protesters, according to a new report. The Washington Post reported that Barr called for the protesters to be moved moments before Trump spoke at the White House yesterday.
  • The state of Minnesota has filed a civil rights charge against the Minneapolis Police Department in response to the killing of George Floyd. The state cited “unlawful race-based policing” in the charge, which was announced by governor Tim Walz at a press conference this afternoon.
  • Joe Biden sharply criticized Trump’s handling of the protests in a Philadelphia speech. “The president of the United States must be part of the solution, not the problem,” Biden said. “This president today is part of the problem and accelerates it.” The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is also expected to attend Floyd’s funeral next week.
  • The archdiocese of Washington said it was “baffling and reprehensible” to allow Trump to visit the Saint John Paul II National Shrine today. As Trump traveled to the Washington site, which is run by the Knights of Columbus, Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement, “I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”
  • The governor of North Carolina said Republicans should prepare for a “scaled-down convention” due to coronavirus. “The people of North Carolina do not know what the status of COVID-19 will be in August, so planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing and face coverings is a necessity,” Cooper said in a letter to the top convention organizer and the RNC chairwoman.

Lauren and Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

George W Bush: 'There is a better way — the way of empathy'

Former president George W Bush released a statement in response to the killing of George Floyd and the protests that it has sparked.

“It remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country. It is a strength when protesters, protected by responsible law enforcement, march for a better future,” the former Republican president said.

“America’s greatest challenge has long been to unite people of very different backgrounds into a single nation of justice and opportunity. ... Many doubt the justice of our country, and with good reason.”

Bush concluded the statement with a call for “peace rooted in justice.” “There is a better way — the way of empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice. I am confident that together, Americans will choose the better way,” Bush said.

The former president made no mention of Trump or the forcible removal of protesters near the White House yesterday.

The acting chief of the US Park Police denied using tear gas on protesters near the White House yesterday, although he acknowledged the use of “smoke canisters and pepper balls” on the demonstrators.

“As many of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls,” USPP acting Chief Gregory T Monahan said in a statement.

“No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park. Subsequently, the fence was installed.”

Monahan’s statement concludes, “The USPP will always support peaceful assembly but cannot tolerate violence to citizens or officers or damage to our nation’s resources that we are entrusted to protect.”

Numerous journalists who were at the protest said the demonstration appeared to be very peaceful in the moments before law enforcement officials started to forcibly remove them.

Trump mocked Joe Biden as “politically weak” and once again referred to protesters as “thugs,” despite widespread criticism of his use of the term last week.

“Sleepy Joe has been in politics for 40 years, and did nothing,” the president said of his Democratic opponent. “Now he pretends to have the answers. He doesn’t even know the questions. Weakness will never beat anarchists, looters or thugs, and Joe has been politically weak all of his life. LAW & ORDER!”

The tweet came less than an hour after Trump’s reelection campaign sent an email referring to Biden as the “Architect of Mass Incarceration,” referencing his role in the passage of the 1994 crime bill.

“Biden hasn’t just stoked America’s racial divisions over the course of his decades in Washington,” the campaign said. “Biden was the chief architect of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs, which targeted Black Americans.”

Earlier today, Biden delivered remarks in Philadelphia criticizing Trump for his handling of the George Floyd protests. “The president of the United States must be part of the solution, not the problem. This president today is part of the problem and accelerates it,” Biden said.

Military trucks were seen driving down the streets of downtown Washington, as protesters began assembling for another demonstration in honor of George Floyd, a day after a peaceful crowd was forcibly dispersed using tear gas.

The city’s curfew is set to go into effect in about three hours, and the crowd of protesters outside of Lafayette Park, near the White House, is continuing to grow.

NC governor: Republicans should prepare for 'scaled-down convention'

In a bit of news related to the coronavirus pandemic, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said Republicans should prepare for a “scaled-down convention” in August.

“The people of North Carolina do not know what the status of COVID-19 will be in August, so planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing and face coverings is a necessity,” Cooper said in a letter to the top convention organizer and the RNC chairwoman.

The letter will likely anger Trump, who has demanded a “guarantee” of a full-scale convention from Cooper, even as health officials have warned such an event could lead to the spread of coronavirus.

The president has threatened to hold the convention elsewhere if Cooper did not agree to a full-scale convention, and Republicans have started considering other possible cities for the event.

According to Politico, Republican officials will make a trip to Nashville later this week to determine whether the city could host the convention. They are also considering Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; Jacksonville, Forida; and Georgia as potential sites.

The Minnesota department of human rights has filed a formal civil rights racial discrimination charge against the Minneapolis Police Department.

Minnesota governor Tim Walz (blue shirt) talks with protesters as they demonstrate against police brutality at the Governor’s Residence last week, over the death of George Floyd after being detained and had his neck knelt on by the Minneapolis police.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz (blue shirt) talks with protesters as they demonstrate against police brutality at the Governor’s Residence last week, over the death of George Floyd after being detained and had his neck knelt on by the Minneapolis police. Photograph: Craig Lassig/EPA

The state cites “unlawful race-based policing” in the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died after being knelt on for almost nine minutes on the Memorial Day holiday, May 25, by a white police officer who has since been fired and charged with murder. Three other officers involved were fired but have not yet been detained or charged.

Governor Tim Walz announced the filing at a news conference this afternoon.

The department enforces the state’s human rights act, the AP reports, particularly as it applies to discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and public services.

Mediation is one of its first-choice tools, but the cases it files can lead to fuller investigations and sometimes end up in litigation.

The Minneapolis Police Department has faced decades of allegations of brutality and other discrimination against African Americans and other minorities, even within the department itself.

Critics say its culture resists change, despite the elevation of Medaria Arradondo as its first black police chief, in 2017.

Arradondo himself was among five black officers who sued the police department in 2007 over alleged discrimination in promotions, pay, and discipline.

They said in their lawsuit that the department had a history of tolerating racism and discrimination. The city eventually settled the lawsuit for $740,000.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, center, listens as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference last week on the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, center, listens as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference last week on the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests. Photograph: Elizabeth Flores/AP

Minnesota files civil rights charge against police

The State of Minnesota has filed a civil rights charge against the Minneapolis Police Department in relation to the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer on Memorial Day, the Associated Press reports.

The event of Floyd’s death, which was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner after his autopsy, has sparked fierce protests in Minneapolis and across the nation.

This news is breaking now, we’ll bring you more details in moments.

Updated

Clip and save this for the future: Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell declined to criticize Trump for his handling of the George Floyd protests.

A day after protesters near the White House were forcibly removed using tear gas, McConnell said of Trump, “I’m not going to critique other people’s performances.”

Asked whether he was comfortable with what occurred in Washington yesterday, McConnell again dodged the question.

“I’m relieved that there were few to no injuries last night, apparently little to no looting,” McConnell said.

A Facebook software engineer has resigned over Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to allow Donald Trump to use the platform to threaten violence against protesters, an escalation in the unprecedented display of dissension roiling the company.

Timothy J Aveni announced his resignation Monday on Facebook and LinkedIn, as hundreds of other Facebook employees were engaging in a “virtual walkout” or speaking out against Zuckerberg’s decision on Twitter.

“Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence,” Aveni wrote. “He showed us on Friday that this was a lie.”

Aveni connected Facebook’s accommodation of Trump’s violent rhetoric to the company’s track record in Asia, where Facebook has been implicated in ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, mob violence in Sri Lanka and the rise of a demagogue in the Philippines.

“Facebook, complicit in the propagation of weaponized hatred, is on the wrong side of history,” he wrote. “Facebook is providing a platform that enables politicians to radicalize individuals and glorify violence, and we are watching the United States succumb to the same kind of social media-fueled division that has gotten people killed in the Philippines, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. I’m scared for my country and I’m done trying to justify this.”

For more on Facebook’s decision to leave Trump’s post up and the response from employees, you can read our full coverage here and here.

A day after protesters were forcibly removed from outside the White House, demonstrators returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to condemn the killing of George Floyd.

The protesters chanted “Don’t shoot!” and “I can’t breathe!” as they laid on the ground in front of the White House, where a new fence has been erected in the wake of the demonstrations.

Barr personally ordered DC protesters be pushed back - report

Attorney general William Barr personally asked for the perimeter around the White House to be extended, resulting in the forcible removal of peaceful protesters, according to the Washington Post.

The Post reports:

Barr ordered law enforcement officials on the ground to extend the perimeter around Lafayette Square, which is adjacent to the White House, just before President Trump spoke Monday, a Justice Department official said.

According to two federal law enforcement officials, the decision had been made late Sunday night or early Monday morning to extend the perimeter around Lafayette Square by one block. The plan was to be executed, according to the Justice Department official, the following afternoon. Barr was a part of the decision-making process, the official said.

The Justice Department official said that in the afternoon, Barr went to survey the scene, and found the perimeter had not been extended. The attorney general conferred with law enforcement officials on the ground, which the official said is captured in a video of the incident.

‘He conferred with them to check on the status, and basically said, ‘This needs to be done. Get it done,’ ’ the Justice Department official said.

The report will almost certainly intensify scrutiny of the decision to deploy tear gas to disperse the crowd of demonstrators, who had been peacefully protesting in the moments before law enforcement officials advanced.

Democratic congressman Eliot Engel, who is facing a primary challenge, was caught on a hot mic fighting for a chance to speak at an event in the Bronx.

Engel, who has been criticized for not spending enough time in his New York district, asked Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr for the microphone during a press conference after last night’s George Floyd protests.

When Diaz refused, Engel said twice, “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.” Diaz replied, “Don’t do that to me.”

Engel was facing primary challenges from two progressive candidates, but one of them dropped out Monday to endorse his opponent, education activist Jamaal Bowman.

The withdrawal could help Bowman consolidate progressive support, putting Engel at risk of losing the June 23 prumary.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Kansas will ask the US supreme court to reinstate a law requiring people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote, continuing one of the most closely-watched voting rights cases in the country.

The law was drafted and championed by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican known nationally for his staunch anti-immigrant views and baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

The law was passed in 2011, went into effect in 2013, and was first blocked by a federal judge just before the 2016 presidential election. In April, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling blocking the law.

While it was in effect, the law blocked more than 31,000 people from getting registered to vote. The US court of appeals for the 10th circuit noted that “at most” just 39 non-citizens got on to Kansas’ voter rolls over a 20-year period.

“Voting is only for citizens, and this Kansas law is designed to confirm the citizenship of those registering to vote. After reviewing the appeals court’s decision, we have concluded there is a reasonable basis for appeal,” Kansas attorney general Derek Schmidt, a Republican, said in a statement.

The US supreme court can choose whether to hear the case or not. If the court were to rule in favor of Kansas, it could open up the floodgates for other states to impose similar requirements.

Updated

Biden to attend Floyd's funeral

Joe Biden is expected to George Floyd’s funeral in Houston, Texas, next week. Attorney Ben Crump, who has been representing the Floyd family, announced the news during a Facebook livestream with Van Jones.

“We understand Vice President Biden will be in attendance,” Crump said.

Crump told CBS News that Biden’s campaign had requested permission to attend the funeral, and the family said he was welcome to do so.

The Floyd family announced today that they would hold public viewings and memorial services later this week and early next week in Minneapolis, Houston and Raeford, North Carolina.

Senate Democrats will try to pass a resolution criticizing Trump and affirming Americans’ right to peaceably assemble after protesters near the White House were forcibly removed yesterday.

The measure reads, “Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That it is the Sense of Congress that the constitutional rights of Americans to peaceably assemble, exercise freedom of speech, and petition the government for redress of grievances must be respected; that violence and looting are unlawful, unacceptable and contrary to the purpose of peaceful protests; and that Congress condemns the President of the United States for ordering Federal officers to use gas and rubber bullets against the Americans who were peaceably protesting in Lafayette Square in Washington, DC on the night of June 1, 2020, thereby violating the constitutional rights of those peaceful protestors.”

Senate Democrats will try to pass the resolution by unanimous consent, meaning a single opposing vote from Republicans will prevent its approval, so the measure is expected to be blocked.

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden sharply criticized Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests in a Philadelphia speech. “The president of the United States must be part of the solution, not the problem,” Biden said. “This president today is part of the problem and accelerates it.”
  • Trump claimed there were “no problems” in DC last night after peaceful protesters near the White House were removed using tear gas. The president has been widely criticized for walking to the nearby St John’s Church for a photo op moments after the protesters were forcibly dispersed.
  • The archdiocese of Washington said it was “baffling and reprehensible” to allow Trump to visit the Saint John Paul II National Shrine today. As Trump traveled to the Washington site, which is run by the Knights of Columbus, Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement, “I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took an extended pause when asked for his response to Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests.

After pausing for a full 20 seconds, Trudeau said, “We all watch in horror and consternation what’s going on in the United States. It is a time to pull people together, but it is a time to listen. It is a time to learn what injustices continues, despite progress over years and decades.”

Trudeau then shifted the focus to his own country. “But it is time for us as Canadians to recognize that we, too, have our challenges,” the prime minister said. “There is systemic discrimination in Canada.”

Trudeau said that structural inequality was a “lived reality for racialized Canadians” and urged his fellow citizens to be “allies in the fight against discrimination.”

Pentagon distances Esper and Milley from walk to St John's

The Pentagon is distancing secretary of defence Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley from Trump’s infamous walk yesterday from the White House to St John’s Episcopal Church.

An unnamed “senior defense official” said during a teleconference briefing that the officials were not aware where they were going when they were summoned to see the president and then fell in behind as he walked out of the White House.

“Once they began that walk off the White House grounds with the president, they continued with him,” the official said, adding that Esper and Milley were also unaware the police had cleared the square with tear gas and baton charges.

Adam Smith, the Democratic chair of the House armed services committee, told reporters in a teleconference he has asked Esper and Milley to come before the committee to explain the military’s role in responding to the George Floyd protests.

“If you use the US military, that is further contributing to the idea that this is a war,” Smith said. “[Trump] is talking about going to war with the citizens of the United States of America. And that is troubling and I am very concerned about what potential role the US military could play in simply amplifying this misguided rhetoric.”

Updated

New York governor Andrew Cuomo mused about “displacing” New York mayor Bill de Blasio in response to his handling of the city’s George Floyd protests.

“My option is to displace the mayor of New York City and bring in the National Guard as the governor in a state of emergency, and basically take over – you would have to take over – the mayor’s job,” Cuomo said.

But the Democratic governor, who has a long hisotry of feuding with de Blasio, added, “I don’t think we’re at that point.”

“That would be such a chaotic situation in the midst of an already chaotic situation, and I don’t think that makes sense,” Cuomo said.

However, the governor said de Blasio and the NYPD’s handling of the protests is “inexcusable.”

“I am not happy with last night, and the police did not do their job last night,” Cuomo said. “That has to be fixed, and that has to be fixed today.”

Trump is receiving some criticism from Republican lawmakers after peaceful protesters were removed from outside the White House using tear gas to allow the president to visit a nearby church.

“There is no right to riot,” Republican senator Ben Sasse said. “But there is a fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop.”

In an interview with Politico today, Republican senator Tim Scott said he would not have done the photo op at St John’s Church that Trump did.

He added, “If your question is, ‘Should you use tear gas to clear a path so the president can go have a photo op?’ the answer is no.”

However, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell did not condemn the forcible removal of protesters this morning and instead warned against “violent riots” overtaking the country.

Trump was greeted with a number of middle fingers and critical signs as he made his way to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington.

According to the White House pool report, some of the signs read “Black Lives Matter,” “Dump Trump” and “Bunker bitch.”

Washington archdiocese: 'Baffling and reprehensible' to allow Trump visit now

As Trump traveled to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington for a photo op, the archdiocese of Washington criticized the facility for allowing the president to visit after peaceful protesters were removed from outside the White House using tear gas.

“I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree,” Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement.

“Saint Pope John Paul II was an ardent defender of the rights and dignity of human beings. His legacy bears vivid witness to that truth. He certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace.”

Trump’s visit to the site comes one day after he used the Bible as a “prop” at St John’s Church near the White House, prompting criticism from a number of relgious leaders.

Updated

Trump to New York: 'The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart'

Trump is tweeting about the George Floyd protests, demanding that governor Andrew Cuomo call up the National Guard to suppress the unrest.

“NYC, CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast! Don’t make the same horrible and deadly mistake you made with the Nursing Homes!!!”

The final sentence of the tweet is a reference to New York’s very controversial decision to send nursing home residents who tested positive for coronavirus back to their facilities to recover, which critics say caused the virus to quickly spread.

New York officials struggled to respond to looting yesterday, with some people breaking into Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan as protests continued to unfold elsewhere.

Moments ago, Joe Biden criticized Trump for being “part of the problem” when it came to intensifying the country’s divisions.

“I promise you this,” Biden said. “I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country – not use them for political gain.”

House speaker Nancy Pelosi read from her Bible at a press conference today, while Trump is being criticized for using the Bible as a “prop” moments after peaceful protesters were tear-gassed near the White House.

“We would hope that the president of the United States would follow the lead of so many presidents before him, to be a healer in chief and not a fanner of the flame,” Pelosi said.

The Democratic speaker expressed dismay over the forible removal of protesters from outside the White House to clear the way for Trump to travel to the nearby St Johns Church.

“What is that? That has no place, and it is time for us to do away with that. A time to heal,” Pelosi said, referencing Ecclesiastes.

A number of religious leaders similarly criticized Trump for holding up his Bible after the protesters were removed, arguing the horrifying scene was not in line with the values that the Bible promotes.

The Right Rev Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, told CNN yesterday: “Let me be clear, the President just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.”

Joe Biden is getting some early positive reviews for his speech in Philadelphia, where he addressed the killing of George Floyd and the protests that it has sparked.

From the president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress:

From a former Republican congressman:

From a vice president for the center-left think tank Third Way:

From a former Obama justice department official:

Biden: Trump 'is part of the problem and accelerates it'

Joe Biden pledged to work to “reverse the systemic racism” if he is elected president, specifically mentioning legislation to outlaw police chokeholds.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee sought to draw a clear contrast between himself and Trump.

“The president of the United States must be part of the solution, not the problem. This president today is part of the problem and accelerates it,” Biden said.

However, the former vice president made clear that the country’s problems woud not end solely by defeating Trump.

“American history isn’t a fairytale,” Biden said, describing “the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.”

He went on to say, “Look, the presidency is a big job. Nobody will get everything right. And I won’t either.

“But I promise you this. I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country – not use them for political gain.”

Updated

Joe Biden criticized Trump for staging a photo op at St John’s Church moments after peaceful protesters were tear-gassed near the White House.

“The president held up the Bible,” Biden said. “I just wish he’d open it once in awhile.”

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee continued, “In addition to the Bible, the president may want to open up the U.S. Constitution once in a while. He’d find a thing called the First Amendment.”

Biden: Floyd's death is a 'wake-up call for our nation'

Joe Biden is now delivering remarks in Philadelphia, where the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee addressed the killing of George Floyd and the protests in response to his death.

Biden described Floyd’s last words – “I can’t breathe – as a “wake-up call for our nation.”

“‘I can’t breathe.’ ‘I can’t breathe.’ George Floyd’s last words. But they didn’t die with him. They’re still being heard. They’re echoing across this nation,” Biden said.

“They speak to a nation where too often just the color of your skin puts your life at risk. ... And they speak to a nation where every day millions of people – not at the moment of losing their life – but in the course of living their life – are saying to themselves, ‘I can’t breathe’. It’s a wake-up call for our nation. For all of us.”

Updated

Trump: 'D.C. had no problems last night'

This is Joan Greve, taking over for Martin Pengelly.

Trump is tweeting about the protests that once again overtook Washington yesterday, bragging that the nation’s capital had “no problems last night.”

“D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all,” the president wrote in a tweet. “Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great (thank you President Trump!).”

Yesterday’s DC protests were, of course, most memorable for the moment when a group of peaceful demonstrators were tear-gassed near the White House moments before Trump delivered remarks from the Rose Garden.

The images and footage of protesters being forcibly dispersed a half an hour before the city’s curfew went into effect caused alarm around the world.

The president’s mention of “domination” also echoes remarks he made yesterday to the nation’s governors, when he told the state leaders that they had been “weak” in their response to the protests and needed to crack down on the demonstrations.

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Protest over George Floyd’s death at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers has spread worldwide, and with it condemnation of US policing practicers from diplomats and other government figures.

Today, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, spoke on the matter in Brussels, calling Floyd’s death an abuse of power.

“Like the people of the United States,” he told reporters, “we are shocked and appalled by the death of George Floyd.”

Borrell said Europeans “support the right to peaceful protest, and also we condemn violence and racism of any kind, and for sure, we call for a de-escalation of tensions”.

The Associated Press adds:

In France, protests were planned for the evening in Paris and across the country after calls from the family of a French black man who died shortly after he was arrested by police in 2016. A protest was also planned in The Hague, Netherlands.

Thousands marched through downtown Sydney. The protesters in Australia’s largest city chanted, “I can’t breathe” – some of the final words of Floyd, Eric Garner, an African American man who was killed while being arrested in 2014, and David Dungay, a 26-year-old Aboriginal man who died in a Sydney prison in 2015 while being restrained by five guards.

The demonstrators carried placards reading, “Black Lives Matter”, “Aboriginal Lives Matter”, “White Silence is Violence” and, referring to those protesting in cities across the US, “We See You, We Hear Your, We Stand With You.”

The protesters, who appeared to number around 3,000, marched from Hyde Park to the New South Wales state parliament, with plans to continue to the US consulate.

“It’s just gut-wrenching the climate of what’s happening in America, and it’s also happening here in Australia, though it’s subtle,” said one of the protesters, Aoatua Lee. “Racism is real for me.”

Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison appeared on “Good Morning America” and was asked by anchor Amy Robach about his review of the killing of George Floyd.

Ellison recently took over the case (from the Hennepin county attorney) and was asked if he is considering upgrading charges against former officer Derek Chauvin to first degree murder (from third degree) in light of the official autopsy from the county medical examiner and the independent, private autopsy conducted at the request of the family, which both concluded that Floyd died by homicide.

“We are considering all charges, they are all on the table,” Ellison said. “I was appointed Sunday, got the file last night, we are poring through it as fast as we can. There are numerous videos, numerous witness statements, a lot to go through. We are not going to prolong this any longer than is absolutely necessary to do that due diligence.”

When asked how long the review would take, Ellison said, “We have to move carefully, I know that is unsatisfying to people. They want what they want immediately and people have waited too long and have been patient over the years, but this case must be done methodically and we are doing that now. But nothing is off the table. Autopsies are factors in the work we are doing right now.”

Ellison emphasized he was working to build an air-tight case. “The fact is these cases are not easy, and anyone who says they are has never done one,” he said.

Ellison concluded the interview by saying he couldn’t give a deadline for when any new charges may be brought against the officers involved in the case.

Monday night saw continued peaceful protests and violence in many major US cities. Here’s an at-a-glance guide:

  • Washington DC: Peaceful protesters were teargassed to make way for a 17-minute photo shoot of Donald Trump in front of St John’s Church. The Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese the church belonged to said she was “outraged” by the president’s actions.
  • Minneapolis, Minnesota: In the city where police violence sparked unrest across the country, protesters were peaceful a day after pleas from George Floyd’s brother.
  • New York City: Heavy handed police tactics over the weekend in Brooklyn gave way to peaceful protests Monday night. But stores were looted in the Midtown and Soho neighborhoods of Manhattan.
  • Chicago, Illinois: Protesters were peaceful in much of Chicago, but looting marred protests in the suburb of Naperville. In the suburb of Cicero, two people were killed.
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Police fired rubber bullets and teargas on protesters who blocked traffic.
  • Baltimore, Maryland: Thousands of people protested in this city, which just five years ago was roiled by the death of Freddie Gray, who was black, in police custody.
  • Oakland, California: Thousands of peaceful protesters gathered in the city.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada: A police officer and an armed man were shot amid protests near the famous “Strip”. At least 338 people have been arrested in Las Vegas after protests through the weekend and the week.
  • Atlanta, Georgia: At least 55 protesters were arrested in Atlanta when they blocked a roadway. It is the fourth day of protests in that city.
  • Nashville, Tennessee: Peaceful protesters cheered when National Guard troops laid down their shields.
  • St Louis, Missouri: A peaceful protest devolved into looting, and four officers were later shot. All are expected to recover, and it is unclear who fired shots which injured the officers.
  • Louisville, Kentucky: Peaceful protests refocused on loss within the community, after two police officers shot and killed a local business owner during protests, but failed to turn on their body cameras. The mayor fired the police chief as a result.
  • Buffalo, New York: Two police officers were injured when they were struck by a vehicle amid protests.

Around the world…
Sydney, Australia: Thousands of protesters marched in solidarity with anti-racism protesters in the US. Placards read, “Black Lives Matter” and “Aboriginal Lives Matter”.

Updated

After Trump’s gas-protesters-to-walk-to-church-and-hold-up-a-Bible stunt on Monday night, there is of course a lot of conversation going on about just how religious this three-times-married, pussy-grabbing, settlement-paying, race-baiting, greed-worshipping president really is.

And, therefore, a clip from the 2016 campaign trail is duly doing the rounds on social media. It shows then-candidate Trump interviewed by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, then of Bloomberg Politics, about the Bible, which he had been telling crowds at his rallies was his favourite book.

Halperin: “I’m wondering what one or two of your most favorite Bible verses are and why.”

Trump: “I wouldn’t want to get into it, because to me that’s very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible it’s very personal so I don’t want to get into verses.”

Halperin: “There’s no verses that you think about or want to cite?”

Trump: “The Bible means a lot to me but I don’t want to get into specifics.”

Halperin: “Even to cite a verse?”

Trump: “No, I don’t want to do that.”

Heilemann: “Are you an Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy?”

Trump says: “Probably equal. I think it’s just incredible, the whole Bible is incredible. I always joke, I say very much so, I hold up The Art of the Deal, I say my second-favourite book of all time. But I just think the Bible is something very special.”

So there’s that.

As for why evangelical Christians, such a powerful voting bloc in the Republican party, support Trump so fervently, here’s John S Gardner’s review of Ralph Reed’s book, For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump. Safe to say, John isn’t buying.

On Monday night, hosts on CNN and Fox News gave voice to the schism in US society over the George Floyd protests and Donald Trump’s threat to use the army against them.

On CNN, Don Lemon said: “Open your eyes, America. We are teetering on a dictatorship.”

Later, Anderson Cooper noted that protests against police brutality and the killing of African American men and women are specifically asking for law and order, and said: “The president seems to think dominating black people, dominating peaceful protesters, is law and order. It’s not.”

On Fox, Trump booster Tucker Carlson spoke for nearly half-an-hour, urging the president to forcibly put the protests down.

“You can regularly say embarrassing things on television,” Carlson said. “You can hire Omarosa to work at the White House. All of that will be forgiven if you protect your people. But if you do not protect them … then you’re done.”

With the protests coming on top of a pandemic which has killed more than 100,000 people in the US and an economy which has cratered as a result, Trump is trailing Joe Biden, his presumptive challenger in November, in most polls.

Noting that a Fox News reporter had been attacked – as have many reporters from a host of outlets, by police as well as protesters – Carlson, speaking directly to a president who was almost certainly watching, asked: “How are you going to protect the country? How hard are you trying?”

Mariann Budde, the Bishop of Washington, has been speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America. Thanks to Joanna Walters for the quotes…

“This is an excruciating moment,” Budde said, “and a crisis moment in our country, where we need healing and reconciliation and we need justice.”

Budde was asked about what happened on Monday night, when police in riot gear fired teargas and charged a crowd around St John’s church before Trump and aides walked across from the White House for a photo opportunity, Trump holding up a Bible for the cameras.

The president, she said, had been “holding up a Bible as if it was justification for a message that is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus”.

Scenes from Monday night.
Scenes from Monday night. Composite: AP/Reuters

Budde spoke forcefully on the matter on Monday night.

“I felt I had to dissociate myself from that and give a message of justice and peace to the nation,” she told ABC, adding that she was given no notice that the president was going to visit the church.

“I was sitting and watching the news with my mother when I saw what everyone else saw,” she said.

Damage to the church was minor, she said, after fire fighters rushed to put out a fire started when a window was smashed and something inflammatory was thrown into one room during Sunday’s protests.

St John’s is known as the “Church of the Presidents”, as every one since James Madison has worshipped there. (When friends of mine were married there a few years ago, a pew at the back with double leg room was labelled as the place where Abraham Lincoln used to sit when he wandered over from the White House to listen in to a service. Whether Lincoln was a Christian or not is, to people like me at least, a fascinating subject.)

Asked if Trump would be welcome at the church now, Budde said: “He is welcome to pray. Presidents are welcome as citizens of our country, to pray, to kneel before God in humility.

“He is not entitled to use the symbolism to promote an entirely different message. The outrage we are hearing from so many of … the nation’s young people and people of colour, we need to align ourselves with the God of unconditional love and justice.”

Updated

At Axios, Jonathan Swan has two fascinating anonymous quotes from the Trump White House, about the decision to speak in the Rose Garden yesterday, and to order the gassing and beating of protesters in Lafayette Square so the president could walk to St John’s church and be seen in public:

One senior aide was exuberantly telling friends the photograph of him holding a Bible in front of the church that had been attacked by vandals was an “iconic” moment for the president.

But a senior White House official told Axios that when they saw the tear gas clearing the crowd for Trump to walk to the church with his entourage: “I’ve never been more ashamed. I’m really honestly disgusted. I’m sick to my stomach. And they’re all celebrating it. They’re very very proud of themselves.”

As protests took place on Friday, remember, Trump was taken to a reinforced bunker under the White House. On Saturday he left for Florida and the SpaceX launch – and spoke about the killing of George Floyd while there – but on Sunday, as protests continued, Trump was not seen or heard from.

Overnight into Monday, as fires burned in Washington and other cities, the lights on the north side of the White House were switched off, something which usually only happens when a president dies.

And then a call between Trump and governors, in which the president ranted about bringing in the army, “dominating” the protests and the need for mass arrests and harsh sentencing, was swiftly leaked to media outlets including Guardian US.

It was all disastrous for the president. And so, in short, the whole chaotic scene last night, in which, again, peaceful protesters were hit with tear gas, was just a stunt for the cameras.

Here’s David Smith, our Washington bureau chief:

Outside St John’s, the Church of the Presidents, Trump stood with bible in hand. It caused widespread outrage and widespread quoting of a line about American fascism attributed to the novelist Sinclair Lewis.

Here’s American academic in London and Guardian contributor Sarah Churchwell, with a fascinating thread on who actually said it:

Good morning from New York, where I’m taking on the blog for a while before Joan Greve signs in from Washington.

I’m in Washington Heights, where lockdown calm still reigns, a long way from the protests in this city. (There’s something very New York indeed about the New York Times live blog I just linked to: it begins with the weather and the all-important notice that alternate-side parking is “suspended through Sunday”.)

The Times is copping a lot of flack this morning – that might be a very British phrase, in which case, it’s being criticised widely – for a front page which did not foreground Donald Trump’s decision to gas and attack peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so he could stage a walk to a church as a photo op.

Here’s a tweet from David Boardman, a former Seattle Times editor turned journalism academic that sums up, in sober fashion, much of the reaction to the Times’ decisions:

The Times story on Trump’s decision, it should be noted, did not pull any punches.

Updated

I’m going to hand over now to my colleague in New York, Martin Pengelly.

Thank you for all your helpful emails and messages.

The archbishop of York in the UK has said he would join protests over the death of George Floyd but that violence should not be part of the action.

John Sentamu, the most senior black leader in the Church of England who retires on Sunday, said he was shielding at present, but added: “I certainly would want to join [the protests]. But at the moment it turns to violence, I wouldn’t be there because I don’t believe violence is the same as going out and protesting.

“People should have the right to protest but not use violence, because I’m afraid you can end up in trouble and arrested.”

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Sentamu was also critical of Donald Trump’s threat to use troops against protesters in US cities.

“People sometimes think that because you’ve got the power and the authority, you can abuse that authority. Martin Luther King said that violence causes as many problems as it solve … darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that; hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

“The problem is America has not been listening to the real problems of African Americans and people of colour,” he said.

The country had not “dealt with this endemic brutality that some people experience from people in uniform”.

Although he condemned violence from protesters and authorities, he said people who had watched the video of a police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck were “saying enough is enough”.

Hi – Oliver Holmes still here.

People can get in contact with me if you see something you think is worth putting on our blog. And thank you for the contributions so far.

You can reach me via Twitter or on email: oliver.holmes [at] theguardian.com

Below is a very powerful photo by a photographer from a Sunday protest in downtown Long Beach, California, which is receiving a lot of attention online after he posted it in the past few hours.

Richard Grant has been clear the man was not fired on but that police did “occasionally” point their rubber bullet guns towards him.

Opening summary

It is now well into Tuesday across the US. We are trying to make sense of a night of protests that has witnessed escalating violence following threats by President Trump to deploy the military.

A week after the police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who died in Minneapolis when a police officer kneeled on his neck, and the demonstrations have not let up.

Curfews have been ignored, and both police and protesters are accused of unwarranted attacks, with confrontations in the street raising tensions and quickly turning peaceful protests into street fights.

In St Louis, four police officers were wounded by gunfire, while in Buffalo, two people were injured when a car rammed into a line of law enforcement officers.

Shootings involving police were also reported in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, authorities in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, where protests have been held, said two people had been killed, although they did not identify the victims or circumstances.

A dramatic Trump photo-op preceded the night, in which Washington DC police forcefully cleared the streets with teargas, rubber bullets and flash-bangs so the president could pose in front of a church and hold the bible.

“I am your president of law and order,” Trump said outside the church. “I am mobilising all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your second amendment rights.”

He vowed to crack down on “professional anarchists, looters, criminals, antifa and others” whose actions had “gripped” America.

Our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, reported on the event that enraged demonstrators but also irked the bishop of the episcopal diocese of Washington. The Right Rev Mariann Budde said she was “not given even a courtesy call, that they would be clearing [the area] with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop”.

Richard Wolffe, a Guardian US columnist, says the photo op showed the US leader had reached the “mad emperor” stage:

Trump can no more end today’s violence than he can manage a pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 Americans, or create the jobs that will rescue more than 40 million unemployed.

Faced with a three-fold crisis of racial, health and economic disasters, we have a three-year-old in the Oval Office.

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