White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany dismissed the calls for President Donald Trump to address the nation after another night of chaos and violence amid George Floyd’s death, claiming Monday morning that a Trump speech wouldn’t stop “antifa.”
With the protests growing increasingly violent and spreading into more cities across the nation—including right outside the White House—the president largely remained hunkered down while firing off inflammatory tweets. Team Trump, meanwhile, has been divided over whether or not the president should speak to the country.
Asked by Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt if the president was considering a national speech to try and ease tensions, McEnany insisted the president had “addressed this repeatedly” before adding that it was unnecessary for the president to say anything else.
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“So I looked, and going back to the first day he saw this video, he has addressed the absolutely horrific video of George Floyd,” she asserted. “He has routinely addressed, in his remarks less than 48 hours ago, the issue of law and order in our streets. He’s issued several statements.”
“A national Oval Office address is not going to stop antifa,” McEnany continued. “What’s going to stop antifa is action. And this president has committed to acting on this. He has several meetings pertaining to that today. And that’s his focus—acting and keeping our streets safe.”
Trump has blamed antifa and far-left demonstrators for the violence and looting at the protests, going so far as to claim he’s going to designate antifa—which isn’t an organized group—a terrorist organization. (The president doesn’t appear to have the legal authority to do that.)
