Trump demonizes protesters, China, news media in fiery White House speech marking July 4

 
President Trump speaks during the 2020 "Salute to America" July 4 event on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

President Trump promised to “safeguard our values” in a Fourth of July speech that denounced racial justice protesters, China, and the news media in a White House speech attended by hundreds and broadcast on national TV.

“We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, or erase our history, or indoctrinate our children, or trample on our freedoms,” Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House.

Black Lives Matter protesters and others who took to the streets after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police “are not interested in justice or in healing. Their goal is demolition,” Trump said.

“Our goal is not to destroy the greatest structure on earth, what we have built, the United States of America,” said the president.

“It’s to build a future where every family is safe, where every child is surrounded by love where every community has equal opportunity and every citizen enjoys great and everlasting dignity.”

The speech wasn’t as fiery as the one Trump gave Friday night at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, when he said protesters were engaged in a “merciless campaign to wipe out our history.”

But Trump made sure Saturday to swipe at protesters as “radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters.”

Additionally, Trump — who according to Washington Post fact-checkers has made false or misleading statements more than 19,000 times in the 3 1/2 years since he took office — accused the news media of lying about him and his supporters.

The media “falsely and consistently label their opponents are racists” and “condemn patriotic citizens who offer a clear and truthful defense of American unity,” Trump said.

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

“We want a clear and faithful defense of American history and we want unity,” he said. “When you level these false charges, you not only slander me, you not only slander the American people, but you slander generations of heroes who gave their lives for America.”

Coronavirus has afflicted 2.8 million Americans, and killed nearly 130,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data. While critics blame thousands of deaths on Trump’s failure to respond to the crisis in its early stages, Trump again in his speech laid blame on China.

“China’s secrecy, deceptions and coverups allowed it to spread all over the world — 189 countries — and China must be held fully accountable,” he said.

Trump’s speech was followed by a 30-minute flyover of military planes, a parachute drop by Army paratroopers and — after dark — a fireworks display.

The group on the South Lawn included doctors, nurses, law enforcement officers and military members as well as Trump administration officials, a White House spokesman said.

Trump’s July 4th remarks — heavier on politics and culture wars than those of previous presidents — contrasted with a more hopeful video message issued by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

“American history is no fairy tale. It’s been a constant push-and-pull between two parts of our character: the idea that all men and women — all people — are created equal and the racism that has torn us apart,” Biden said.

“Once proposed, it was an idea that couldn’t be constrained,” he said of the promise of all men are created equal. The video cut to clips of both civil rights protests in the 1960s and recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations.