WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump appears to be privately backing off his threat to deploy troops to the states in order to quell protests over police brutality.
White House officials say this week’s response to demonstrations across the country indicates that local governments should be able to restore order themselves.
The shift comes as protests in Washington and other cities over police brutality against minorities proceeded Tuesday with relative calm, a striking contrast to the harsh crackdowns outside the White House on Monday night.
The president wanted to make the aggressive action in the nation’s capital an example for the rest of the country, a senior White House official said Tuesday.
Officials in the nation’s capital are pushing back on an aggressive response by the federal government to demonstrations over the death of George Floyd. The mayor of Washington flatly rejected a Trump administration proposal for the federal government to take over the city’s police force and threatened to take legal action if it attempted to do so.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said that Texas will not be calling on the military for help because Texas can take care of itself.
And Arlington County in Virginia pulled its officers from Washington, saying they had been used “for a purpose not worthy of our mutual aid obligations.”
Attorney General William Barr is vowing “even greater law enforcement resources and support” as the District of Columbia faces another nighttime curfew aimed at quelling protests.
