The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody sparked violent protests across the nation, with the torching of the Third Precinct headquarters in Minneapolis serving as the symbolic epicenter.
After a week of arson, looting and peaceful protest, Gov. Tim Walz got on a governors' call with President Donald Trump, a vocal critic of the city's initial handling of the disturbances. Trump called the governors "weak" and said they need to be more aggressive and "dominate" unruly protesters.
A partial transcript of their exchange, obtained by the Daily Beast, provides the exact words the Minnesota governor used to defuse the president's ire:
Trump: "I know Gov. Walz is on the phone and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that. He had a lot of men ..."
Walz: "Thank you, Mr. President, I want to give a thank you to [Defense] Secretary [Mark] Esper and General [Mark] Milley for your strategic guidance. Very helpful. Yeah, our community is grieving and in pain, and I would just say as far as the [inaudible] the peaceful protesters were expressing an outrage that is real. They witnessed eight minutes of a man dying in front of them. …
"That part of it then of course sparked civil unrest … and once that started to spin, the idea that when you saw this happen the first few days, I don't believe anybody would have had a big enough force to do this …
"But we mobilized … about 750 to 1,000 is what we could get of National Guard on the scene. It was one of our biggest mobilizations in our state's history … and we were still overwhelmed. At that point in time I just took the next step, I mobilized the entire Minnesota National Guard …
"And here our problem is going to be, if we cannot maintain this posture, we do not have the resources to maintain this posture, and we're going to have to transition back …"
