GMB’s Piers Morgan asks Donald Trump to empathise with US protesters

The presenter has been a vocal supporter of the United States President.
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Piers Morgan has asked Donald Trump to empathise with the feelings of protesters in America.

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities across the United States in recent days, after 46-year-old black man George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis on Monday.

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Video footage showed a white police officer kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck as he lay on the ground, despite Mr Floyd repeatedly saying that he could not breathe.

Mr Morgan, who has been a vocal supporter of the President since his election in 2016 and once applied to be his Chief of Staff, struck a conciliatory tone in a message to Mr Trump.

“Spend some time with your family watching that video from start to finish,” he said.

“Then imagine it was your son, and imagine how you would feel if a police officer did that to your son.

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“And then imagine if they did it because of his skin colour, and they just didn’t care enough about his life.

Piers Morgan has asked Donald Trump to empathise with the feelings of protesters in America.Piers Morgan has asked Donald Trump to empathise with the feelings of protesters in America.
Piers Morgan has asked Donald Trump to empathise with the feelings of protesters in America.

“And then think about how angry you might feel, because that’s the calculation you have to make if you want to even try to understand why people are this angry.”

Last night, Mr Trump gave a hastily prepared televised address in the Rose Garden of the White House, over the sound of tear gas explosions in nearby Lafayette Park.

In the speech, Mr Trump insisted that he would defend people’s right to peaceful protest, but called himself the “law and order President”, condemning examples of looting and violence.

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He heavily criticised state governors for failing to control the situation, and publicly offered them an ultimatum.

Either authorise each state’s national guard to quell the protests, or he would mobilise the US military to do it for them.

Riot police then used tear gas and rubber bullets to drive back hundreds of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park in Washington D.C, so that Mr Trump and his entourage could walk through it to visit a vandalised church.

During the protests there have been hundreds of accusations of police brutality, as well as examples of journalists being targeted by officers - despite being explicitly exempt from curfews and other restrictions.

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In recent weeks, Mr Morgan has repeatedly made headlines for his scathing commentary on Boris Johnson’s handling of coronavirus, and the conduct of top Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings.

Morgan accused him of “single-handedly destroying the lockdown” by breaking the rules to visit his family home in Durham in April.

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