President Trump has responded to the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis, with a mixture of inflammatory tweets, silence, and verbal sympathy. In Florida on Saturday, for example, Trump called Floyd's death "a grave tragedy" that "never should have happened" and "has filled Americans all over the country with horror, anger, and grief."
Even as Trump's advisers privately complained that his tweets "were pouring fuel on an already incendiary situation," his "aides were disappointed that the remarks, delivered late Saturday afternoon as part of a speech otherwise celebrating the triumph of the space program, did not get wider attention," The New York Times reports. "In the speech, Mr. Trump repeated his calls for law and order, but in more measured terms and leavened by expressions of sympathy for Mr. Floyd's family, whom he had called to offer condolences."
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