Donald Trump has moved on from the birther movement to float another equally reckless conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama.
After three police officers were killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the president said that “there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None.” He made similar comments after five officers were killed in Dallas on July 7, calling the attack “vicious, calculated and despicable.” He also flew to Dallas on Tuesday to speak at a memorial for the fallen officers.
Still, Trump questioned the legitimacy of Obama’s grief and concern.
“I watched the president, and sometimes the words are okay. But you just look at the body language and there’s something going on. Look, there’s something going on,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
“There’s just bad feeling,” he said.
Trump was responding to the head of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association’s claim that Obama “has blood on his hands” because he also condemned the police shootings of two African-American men.
“The president of the United States validated a false narrative and the nonsense that Black Lives Matter and the media are pressing out there to the public,” Steve Loomis said. “He validated with his very divisive statements and now we see an escalation.”
For months, conservatives have said that the president’s response to the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired some kind of anti-police mentality.
As HuffPost Black Voices editor Lilly Workneh points out, Black Lives Matter has largely focused on fighting racial discrimination and not the general concept of law enforcement.
The shooters in Dallas and Baton Rouge “are in no way reflective of or represented by the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said. “Just because the movement aims to end police violence against black lives does NOT mean it encourages violence against police by black people. Black Lives Matter has never, ever insinuated that other lives don’t.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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