If you have allegations of racial discrimination flitting across the country, with at times violent protests, it would perhaps be wise to not fan the flames. George Floyd, a black man in the US, died recently as a white police official knelt on his neck. His death has triggered widespread condemnation across the world, and protesters have taken to the streets of America to criticise the incident and demand justice.
But on Friday, US President Donald Trump seemed to be blithely oblivious to the grim situation that has pervaded his nation. Speaking about George Floyd during a press conference Trump said that this was a "great day for him (Floyd)".
While it was a tad unclear what exactly made it a "great day", Trump's remarks on Floyd came right after he stressed that "Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement, regardless of race, color, gender, or creed."
"We all saw what happened last week, we can't let that happen. Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, 'this is a great thing that's happening for our country.' This is a great day for him, for everybody, in terms of equality," Trump said after his comment on "equal justice".
Trump also spoke about the fact that US employers added 2.5 million workers to their payrolls last month -- a detail that had been announced hours earlier by the Labor Department.
During his speech in the Rose Garden Trump also called the novel coronavirus outbreak "a gift from China, and added that it was "a very bad gift" that the other country should have halted at the source.
"China has taken tremendous advantage of the United States, we helped rebuild China, we gave them 500 billion dollars a year. How stupid are the people who represented our country with China and many other countries. But that's all changing," he added.
