New book claims Trump suggested shooting protesters 'in the legs or something'

Mark Esper.
(Image credit: PAUL HANDLEY/AFP via Getty Images)

Ex-Defense Secretary Mark Esper alleges in a memoir out next week that former President Donald Trump suggested shooting Washington, D.C. demonstrators "in the legs" as they protested George Floyd's death in the summer of 2020, Axios reports Monday.

"Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?" Trump reportedly asked, per Esper's A Sacred Oath.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.