Former President Donald Trump would have beaten up people protesting the death of George Floyd in May 2020 if the Secret Service hadn’t forced him to hide in a bunker beneath the White House, his
fourth and final chief of staff Mark Meadows claims.Trump had insisted at the time he had only been ‘inspecting’ the bunker as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the White House, prompting the Secret Service to temporarily lock down the building.
In his soon-to-be-released book The Chief’s Chief’, Meadows offers his account of the event that sent the White House into ‘Code Red’.
‘Protestors had jumped the fence on the Treasury side of the compound, and they were running toward the Oval Office. I’m sure that if President Trump had the choice, he would have headed out to the lawns and knocked their heads in one by one,’ Meadows wrote of the May 29, 2020 incident, according to excerpts obtained by the Daily Beast ahead of the book’s publication.
Thousands of protesters demonstrated peacefully near the White House during the day, but the hundreds who remained in the streets by nightfall turned the demonstration more volatile.
‘But he didn’t have a choice. When it comes to the United States Secret Service, no one does. Either you do what they say, or they pick you up and make you do it,’ Meadows wrote.
‘So when the Secret Service asked President Trump to head downstairs to the White House bunker, he complied. He knew that he could go to the bunker with a few agents by his side, or he could go on their shoulders kicking and screaming. For everyone’s sake the first option was better.’
The former chief of staff wrote he wasn’t sure who leaked the information to The New York Times, who wrote of the president’s stint in the bunker, but that he had a few suspects.
‘To this day, I do not know how this information got out, but I have my suspicions and it’s a short list… If I had to bet, I would say it was probably Stephanie Grisham, Emma Doyle or someone from the VP’s team,’ Meadows said.
Meadows’ book also revealed that Trump tested positive for Covid-19 days before his first presidential debate with Joe Biden. The bombshell revelation, first reported by The Guardian, shocked many as the former president claimed to have a negative test before the debate — and was only hospitalized with the virus a week later.
In a statement on Wednesday, Trump called Meadows’ claims ‘Fake News’.
By Meadows’ account of the events, Trump tested positive on September 26, 2020 — the same day the White House held a Rose Garden ceremony honoring supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett — which was later revealed to be a super-spreader event.
As they took off for the debate, the White House had still not told the public Trump tested positive and then negative two days before.
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