US President Donald Trump took verbal slaps at the mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, calling her "grossly incompetent" and "in no way qualified" to run the city. He praised the "great men and women of the National Guard" for being deployed, and suggested that if it was not for them, Bowser "would have looked no better than her counterpart mayor in Minneapolis" amid the ongoing protests over the death of George Floyd.
.@MayorBowser is grossly incompetent, and in no way qualified to be running an important city like Washington, D.C. If the great men and women of the National Guard didn’t step forward, she would have looked no better than her counterpart Mayor in Minneapolis!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
The comment echoes a series of tweets posted earlier by Trump in which he denounced Bowser and threatened to "bring a different group of men and women" instead of those from the National Guard, whom she, according to POTUS, "is fighting".
Earlier, Bowser called for the removal of "unidentified federal personnel patrolling the streets of Washington DC", noting that they "pose both safety and national security risks" in her letter to the president. She expressed her concerns over the presence of the US National Guard in the city, insisting on the capability city police to tackle the situation without "this multiplicity of forces".
The squabble unfolds amid ongoing protests over widespread police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd who, while in police custody, was killed after an officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his neck into the ground with a knee for nearly nine minutes.
