Governors Push Back On Trump's Threat To Deploy Federal Troops To Quell Unrest

President Trump, in a conference call Monday with the nation's governors, threatened to deploy the U.S. military to restore order unless states hit by days of unrest "put down" violent demonstrations, urging leaders to "dominate" lawbreakers or risk looking like "a bunch of jerks."

The upbraiding from the White House didn't sit well with many governors, who have been busy responding to clashes between protesters and law enforcement in dozens of U.S. cities sparked by the death due to asphyxiation a week ago of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.

Trump took a tough line with the governors, saying he was putting Attorney General Bill Barr in charge of the federal law enforcement response. The president said the White House was "strongly looking for arrests."

"You have to arrest people and you have to try people. And they have to go to jail for long periods of time," the president said.

"If people are running amok, you have to dominate. If you aren't dominating, you're wasting your time," he said. "They're going to run over you, you're going to look like a bunch of jerks."

"It's a movement, if you don't put it down it will get worse and worse," Trump said. "The only time it's successful is when you're weak and most of you are weak."

The call followed yet another night of unrest Sunday over the May 25 death of Floyd and came on the same day that the president urged in a Rose Garden address that the governors deploy National Guard troops to quell the unrest.