Trump Hid In A Bunker During Protests Before Insulting Governors For Being “Weak”

Before berating governors and demanding that they be more “dominant,” President Trump hid in a White House bunker that’s been used during terrorist attacks in the past.

Published on 6/1/2020 at 5:20 PM

President Trump waits on the rooftop of the Operational Building at NASA before the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Trump took the trip to Florida one day after hiding in an underground White House bunker during protests in DC. (Photo by Saul Martinez/Getty Images)

President Trump spent nearly an hour in an emergency bunker at the White House Friday night, as protests against police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis spread across the country, including in Washington, D.C.

Protesters gathered outside the White House — a location that is frequently used by activists for demonstrations — and “in some cases [were] throwing bricks and bottles,” according to The New York Times.

“Nervous for his safety, Secret Service agents abruptly rushed the president to the underground bunker used in the past during terrorist attacks,” The Times reported. The AP said the protests “sparked one of the highest alerts on the White House complex” since 9/11.

The Times report cites officials who say “they were never really in danger,” but add that “Mr. Trump and his family have been rattled” by the protests, which continued through the weekend and at times became violent. After police fired “tear gas stun grenades” at more than 1,000 protesters on Sunday, as described by CBS News, some protesters responded by setting fires in the streets around the White House.

Trump did not appear in public at all on Sunday.

Then on Monday, on a call with the nation’s governors, Trump implored the state leaders to try to “dominate” the protesters, saying law enforcement should get even more aggressive with their responses. “You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again,” he said at a time when much of the national conversation was centered on excessive use of force from police forces across the country in recent days.

"You have to dominate or you'll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people," Trump said to the governors. Multiple news outlets obtained audio of the call.

"It's a movement, if you don't put it down it will get worse and worse. The only time it’s successful is when you're weak and most of you are weak,” said the president, who hid in a bunker two nights earlier.