Trump Wanted Military To Shoot Black Lives Matter Protesters Former Pentagon Chief Says

According to a new book by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Donald Trump openly questioned why the military couldn't just go in and open fire on Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer of 2020. These were the people who were protesting around the country after the murder of George Floyd, and Trump apparently thought exercising their First Amendment rights was worthy of being put to death, or just being seriously injured for it. Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

According to a forthcoming book by former defense secretary, mark Esper, who served under Donald Trump in the summer of 2020 during the George Floyd black lives matter protest that were taking place across the country. Donald Trump openly openly ask mark Espes, you know, chief of the Pentagon, basically in control of the military underneath Donald Trump asked them why can't we just shoot these people? So here's a little backstory before I read the exact quote that ESER says, Trump said to him, Donald Trump was considering according to ESER invoking the insurrection act by doing so that would've given him the authority to send in the United States military, right? Not just the national guard he could have sent in the actual military to these areas to basically get rid of the protestors, you know, stomp all over the first amendment. I know Republicans loved to tell us that all these people were burning down cities.

They tell us literally no city in the United States was burnt to the ground. Was there looting? Was there destruction of property? Yes, there was. Okay. Let's not let, let's be honest. Let's be honest there, those things did happen. Not to the level Republicans say they did. Um, however, the vast of these people were just protestors. Okay. They were not looters. They were not arsonists. They were people out in the streets because they were angry at a corrupt system. And Donald Trump wanted, according to mark Esper to shoot 'em. So here's the quote. Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something. Esper replied the good news. This wasn't a difficult decision. The bad news. I had to figure out a way to walk Trump back without creating the mess I was trying to avoid. Now, let's be very clear about something shooting somebody in the leg. Isn't just a harmless little. Okay, good. Now you're gonna stop up. Um, you can actually die from being shot. You can die from being shot anywhere in the body. By the way, you can bleed out. Your body can go into shock. You know, the, the shock of it can give you a heart attack. There's many different ways that even getting shot in the leg hell shot in the foot can actually kill you. So no, this wasn't a non lethal alternative. It was just a less lethal,

But that's what Trump said. Why can't we just shoot? 'em shoot 'em in the leg. These were people again, the vast majority of them simply exercising their first amendment freedoms. They have a right to assemble. They have a right to make their voices heard. And Trump didn't care. He didn't care about the constitution. As Republicans loved to say, we're the only ones who care about free speech and constitution. Protesting is a form of free and your president wanted to kill these people. He may not have straight up, said he wanted to kill these people, but suggesting that they get shot wherever it is on their body. In many cases, likely would've amounted to a death sentence.

And Trump was okay with that. And this of course is why we have seen Republicans in control of states across the country. Florida's a great example here. Why they've passed laws saying, Hey, guess what if a protester's in the street it's blocking the road, feel free to plow on through 'em and you can't be prosecuted if you kill 'em by doing that, that's just building on what Donald Trump wanted to do to these people, which was, you know, see seriously harmed, possibly kill them and Republicans. Again, we have that law now here in Florida, if somebody's protesting down the street, I can plow my car into them and I can't be prosecuted for it. If they're blocking my way, I can run them over here in Florida.

That's the law. And that's what Republicans want across the country. Folks keep in mind. Everything Trump did during that term, uh, term in office was a dry run. If Trump ever gets back into power, he is gonna make sure that everybody he puts in any position is going to be somebody that will tell him yes, do that to whatever crew crazy idea he has.