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 Stephen Maturen/GettyThe coronavirus pandemic stole from President Donald Trump his most prized political possession: a booming U.S. economy. Now racial unrest in Minnesota threatens to steal his second-most-prized one: an image of power and stability that he can project to supporters and adversaries alike.
Hours into a spate of destruction and arrests in Minneapolis after the police killing of an unarmed black man, Trump was already threatening to send in the National Guard and warning that "looters" in the city would be shot—employing a phrase popularized by a former Miami police chief famous for "tough-on-crime" policies that targeted citizens of color.
Trump walked back the latter statement a few hours later, saying he only meant that looters could end up shooting people, not that they should be shot. "I've heard that phrase for a long time. I don't know where it came from or where it originated," he declared later. "I wouldn't know a thing like that."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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 President Donald Trump said Friday that he's spoken to the family of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis earlier this week.
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 U.S. Democratic lawmakers said on Friday they want to conduct closed-door interviews with officials from President Donald Trump's administration about the surprise firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, and release transcripts to the public.
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 Reuters / Jonathan ErnstTwitter hid a tweet from President Trump early Friday that the social media site said broke its rules on "glorifying violence," then concealed the same tweet again when it was later reposted from the official White House account.
The tweets in question directly threatened demonstrators after a chaotic third day of protests against the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Demonstrators are demanding action over the death of the 46-year-old unarmed black man after shocking video footage showed a white police officer kneeling on his neck.
Late Thursday, they took over the Minneapolis Police Department's third precinct and set the building ablaze.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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 Vanita Gupta, head of the department's Civil Rights Division in the Obama administration, said the Minneapolis Police Department was on her "radar" during her tenure.
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 CNN anchor Don Lemon unloaded on President Donald Trump after the Justice Department said Thursday that the president was "actively monitoring" the investigation of four Minneapolis police officers over the death of an unarmed black man, exclaiming that nobody "wants to hear from the Birther-in-Chief."
During a press conference late Thursday afternoon, local and federal investigators insisted that they "can't rush" bringing charges for the death of George Floyd, who was pronounced dead after an officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. With protests raging across the country, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said the investigation was a "top priority" for the feds before adding that Trump and Attorney General William Barr were paying high attention to the case.
Moments after the presser wrapped up, Lemon blew up over MacDonald invoking the president in this particular situation, bringing up a number of incidents Trump has been involved in over the years that have widely been seen as racist.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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