Trump threatens DC protesters with ‘vicious dogs’ and ‘ominous weapons’ should they cross a line

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George Floyd protests practically reached the front door of the White House on Friday, triggering another harsh warning from President Donald Trump reminiscent of the 1960s.

Trump, who came under fire earlier that day for suggesting that looters would be shot in Minnesota, applauded the U.S. Secret Service for protecting him inside the Washington, D.C. property and threatened angry protesters with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons,” should they cross a line.

In a string of tweets Saturday morning, the president said the law enforcement agency acted “not only totally professional, but very cool” and that he “couldn’t have felt more safe” inside his current residence.

As for the demonstrators, Trump suggested they were “professionally organized” and, should anyone breached the fence on the property, they would be “greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.”

READ MORE: Trump calls George Floyd protesters ‘THUGS,’ threatens to send military

As reported by Fox News, Secret Service agents, armed with riot gear, kept many protesters at bay at Lafayette Park across from the White House fence. Riot police and protesters clashed that night over temporary barriers.

“They let the ‘protesters’ scream & rant as much as they wanted,” according to Trump’s account of the scene. If protestors “got too frisky,” Secret Service agents “would quickly come down on them, hard – didn’t know what hit them,” he wrote in the Twitter post.

In a later tweet, Trump publicized that it could be “MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE,” referring to his “Make America Great Again” slogan that helped elect him to the top office in 2016.

He also minimized the D.C. demonstrators, accusing them of being “professionally managed so-called ‘protesters.'”

Trump’s comments are the latest in a mix of oft-repeated statements harking back to a time in America that was not so welcoming to Black people. Black Americans have argued that the “Make America Great Again” slogan itself does not reflect any time in history that the country was great to or for the Black community.

In early morning tweets on Friday, Trump called Minneapolis rioters “THUGS” and said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase once made by former Miami Police Chief Walter Headley as part of his approach to handling Black protesters in 1967. The phrase was also used by segregationist George Wallace during a presidential bid the following year, according to NBC News.

Twitter slapped a warning sign on the tweet from Trump, who claimed ignorance to the origins of the phrase while defending his intentions behind the statement. The line “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” caused the social media site to censor the tweet for violating its policies on “glorifying violence,” Reuters reports.

Trump’s threat to sic dogs on protestors at his Pennsylvania Avenue residence also calls back to a violent scene earlier that decade. In 1963, peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, whether man, woman or child, in response were attacked by the state with dogs and fire hoses. Images captured from the protests are some of the most widely seen pictures from the movement for civil rights in the 1960s.

The nation’s capital is just one of the many cities protesting the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Protests and riots have broken out in New York, Atlanta, Louisville, Kentuck, Dallas, San Jose, Texas, Detroit, Los Angeles and other American cities.