Before he took the stage at a campaign event at Georgia's Valdosta State University on Monday afternoon, Donald Trump ordered his Secret Service detail to remove about 30 black students standing quietly on bleachers in the back of the gym, Secret Service agents told USA Today. The students, some of whom were crying or visibly upset after they were escorted outside, said they had no plans to protest Trump. "We didn’t plan to do anything," student Tahjila Davis, 19, told USA Today. "They said, 'This is Trump's property; it's a private event.' But I paid my tuition to be here."
Earlier Monday, Secret Service agents had escorted some Black Lives Matter protesters from a Trump rally in Radford, Virginia — and some kind of Trump security agent choked and threw a Time photographer to the ground as he took pictures. Late Monday, the Trump campaign denied that the Valdosta students were thrown out "at the request of the candidate," according to a statement from campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks. "There is no truth to this whatsoever." Davis, the student, said that she didn't "understand why they would do something like that.... I have not experienced any racism on this campus until now."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
