White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was happy to report at her Wednesday briefing that "Seattle has been liberated." The CHAZ, or CHOP, zone was "a failed four-week Democratic experiment" that did little more than prove that "law and order is essential," she said.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan claimed that the CHOP zone would be a "summer of love." It ended up being a summer of violence, where victims as young as 16 were killed in the police-free zone. Police finally took the precinct back on Wednesday with little resistance and are beginning to restore some normalcy.
Still, racial tensions are high in the aftermath of the tragic Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. And the White House press demanded to know what exactly President Trump meant when he called Black Lives Matter "a symbol of hate."
President Trump agrees with the sentiment that all black lives matter, McEnany explained. That includes retired police captain David Dorn, who was slain in St. Louis last month trying to protect business owners targeted during the riots that spread around the country after Floyd's death.
What he doesn't agree with, is an organization that chants things like, "Pigs in a blanket. Fry 'em like bacon" and demonstrates other forms of hate for our police officers, she explained.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany addresses Trump calling Black Lives Matter a "symbol of hate" pic.twitter.com/lYIECZRvGp
— Bloomberg QuickTake (@QuickTake) July 1, 2020
"That is a hateful thing to say," she said, as is BLM leader Hawke Newsome's recent statement that if the culture doesn't change, they'll "burn the system down."
As Newsome explained to Fox News's Martha MacCallum, he could be talking figuratively, or literally.