Georgia Republican Mike Collins wildly came out to blame the 2020 civil unrest following the death of George Floyd on former president Joe Biden – who was not even in the Oval Office at the time.
The southern congressman and several other House Republicans spoke Monday during a press conference held on the eve of the first anniversary of the failed assassination of President Donald Trump, Mediaite reported.
“It has been one year since they tried to kill our president,” the Georgia Rep said, seemingly trying to blame the shooting on a mysterious group rather than the known gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was a registered Republican.
Ahead of the shooting, Crooks researched where Trump, Biden and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland would make public appearances; however, it was still unclear a year later why he chose to target Trump during his Butler, Pa., rally.
“I want to take just a quick moment to focus on what I call consequences and make two quick points. You know, the culture of lawlessness and violence, this didn’t start last year,’ Collins said of the shooting.
“This started under the Obama administration when they decided to illegally investigate conservative groups, when they were out there demonizing Republicans, who just simply wanted to follow the Constitution and make our country better,” he bizarrely claimed.
Collins went on to blame the flurry of violence in 2020 – sparked by the killing of Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes as he begged for air – on Biden.
Notably, Biden was not even president at the time. Trump was.
“Then you fast forward to the Biden administration, who they put this on steroids and actually allowed the public to take part in this game. Example? Summer of love, where rioters were out there burning police stations, assaulting officers, taking over our cities, where they were advocating to defund the men and women in blue who protect us,” Collins incorrectly stated.
“And they didn’t just encourage it, y’all. They promoted it. They even paid for their bail,” Collins falsely claimed.
The Republican claimed Americans place “no value to the sanctity of life anymore,” and blamed “socialist woke politicians” for the country’s current state.
Biden, who was not president at the time of Floyd’s killing, was campaigning during the protests and riots in 2020. He eventually went on to win against Trump that November.
The Democratic candidate gained a surge in fundraising following the flurry of protests, which saw thousands of people take to the streets in protest against police brutality and racism, according to a CNBC report at the time.
Meanwhile, Trump drew sharp criticism over his poor reaction to the protests, which were largely peaceful but also saw some rioting in pockets across the nation, including in Minnesota, where Floyd was killed.
Trump had been calling for a tougher response to the protests when he was caught staging a photo op outside a Washington, D.C., church.
The then-president came under criticism after ordering police to violently remove George Floyd protesters from outside the church using tear gas and rubber bullets for him to take the staged photo.
The image, which showed Trump sternly holding a bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, was taken as protesters cried in the background, and was reportedly motivated by his fury over news coverage claiming he and his wife, Melania, were being rushed to the White House bunker in response to the protests.
