President Trump on Thursday praised National Guard troops for helping pacify unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and blasted the National Basketball Association’s ratings as players refuse to compete in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
“I appreciate the governor calling and saying he wanted National Guard. As you know, last night was very quiet, the night before wasn’t, and the reason it wasn’t — they didn’t have proper protection,” Trump told reporters during a hurricane briefing.
The president said that “the National Guard did a fantastic job. [White House chief of staff] Mark Meadows is here. We called up the National Guard, we sent it out, and they did a fantastic job last night. We had virtually no incident.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that Trump “assisted Wisconsin in the deployment of almost 1,000 National Guard and over 200 federal law enforcement personnel” after a phone call from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Evers reportedly mobilized the National Guard on Monday, dispatching 150 guardsmen to Kenosha amid widespread looting and arson after Blake was shot Sunday. On Tuesday, he increased the number of guardsmen to 250.
Meadows said Tuesday that Evers turned down an offer of federal help.
The Democratic governor agreed to accept federal assistance after the Tuesday night shooting deaths of two protesters, allegedly killed by 17-year-old pro-police gunman Kyle Rittenhouse.
Trump, who will give his Republican National Convention acceptance speech later Thursday, told reporters he was unaware of NBA players protesting the Blake shooting by refusing to play basketball.
“I don’t know much about the NBA protests,” Trump said.
“I know their ratings are very bad because I think people are a little tired of the NBA, frankly. But I don’t know too much about the protests, but I know their ratings have been very bad and that’s unfortunate. They have become like a political organization. And that’s not a good thing. I don’t think that’s a good thing for sports or for the country.”
Trump also said he anticipates touring Gulf Coast hurricane damage Saturday or Sunday and that he anticipates “mind-boggling” GDP growth numbers just before the election.
