In a sad week for America, Trump has fled from his duty

Opinion by David Gergen, CNN Senior Political Analyst

Updated 8:33 AM ET, Sun May 31, 2020

Editors note: David Gergen has been a White House adviser to four presidents and is a senior political analyst at CNN. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he founded the Center for Public Leadership. Tune in CNN Sunday at noon ET for WE REMEMBER, a memorial service for those lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, hosted by Jake Tapper. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)This past week has brought tragedy upon tragedy to our nation: the death toll from Covid-19 passed a grim milestone of 100,000 deaths; the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited mass protests in Minneapolis and beyond, and seven people were shot in protests demanding justice in Louisville.

But our President was mostly busy with other things: getting into a public fight with Twitter, condemning China over Hong Kong and terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization — an entity that once looked to the United States as the world’s leading institution in fighting pandemics.

President Donald Trump also took time, of course, to send out a stream of new, controversial tweets. He called protesters in Minneapolis “thugs” and repeated a racist line from a Miami police chief years ago, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” He even retweeted a video in which a supporter says, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

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Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/30/opinions/trump-twitter-minneapolis-george-floyd-gergen/index.html