President Trump on Tuesday night reveled in the recollection of police roughing up a journalist, calling it "a beautiful sight."
Mr. Trump was met with cheers and laughter by his supporters at a Pittsburgh rally, as he recounted a story of law enforcement throwing aside a reporter in Minneapolis "like he was a little bag of popcorn." Mr. Trump did not name the journalist or outlet he was referring to, although Minneapolis state police at one point did arrest a Black CNN reporter, Omar Jimenez, along with his crew, live as he was reporting, and other journalists were teargassed during the violence.
The president went on to say that the National Guard "cured" Minneapolis when forces arrived on scene earlier this year, amid the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody.
"They grabbed them, they grabbed them, they grabbed them," Mr. Trump said of the law enforcement officers. "They were grabbing them left and right. Sometimes they grab, they grab one guy — 'I'm a reporter, I'm a reporter!' Get out of here. They threw him aside like he was a little bag of popcorn. But no I mean honestly when you watch the crap that we've all had to take so long, when you see that, it's actually a — you don't want to do that — but when you see it, it's actually a beautiful sight. It's a beautiful sight."
The president also recently used similar language to mock MSNBC host Ali Velshi for getting hit in the knee with a rubber bullet while he was covering a protest.
"This guy Velshi," Trump said at a Minnesota rally Friday. "He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas, and he went down. He was down. 'My knee. My knee.' Nobody cared. These guys didn't care. They moved him aside."
"And they just walked right through. It was the most beautiful thing," Trump added. "After we take all that crap for weeks and weeks, and you finally see men get up there and go right through them, wasn't it really a beautiful sight?"
Velshi corrected the president on the type of projectile that struck him and asked Mr. Trump what law he had broken.