Trump Rejects Rallyists' Cries Of Racism

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Donald Trump on Thursday rebooted his flagging re-election campaign with a speech starkly rejecting nationwide protesters’ claims of police racism, saying only a “few bad apples” are to blame.

Far from reaching out to demonstrators’ searing anger, he offered only a vague proposal to “encourage” officers to meet “the most current professional standards for the use of force.”

“You always have a bad apple, no matter where you go,” said Trump, who is making law and order a new keystone of his bid to win a second term on Nov. 3. “There aren’t too many of them in the police department.”

“We have to work together to confront bigotry and prejudice wherever they appear, but we will make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labelling tens of millions of decent Americans as racist or bigots,” Trump said.

The Republican has struggled to find the right tone to address the explosion of protests over the last two weeks in the wake of the death of an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, as he was arrested in Minneapolis.

That crisis, coupled with the economic devastation of the COVID-19 shutdown — and the fact that the pandemic continues to kill up to 1,000 people a day — has left the country crying out for healing.