Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Trump: ‘He should just stop talking’

Washington CNN — Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Sunday rebuked Donald Trump’s rhetoric amid days of protests after the death of George Floyd, saying the President “is making it worse” and is stoking racial tensions. Or if he can’t be silent, if there is somebody of good sense and good conscience in the White House, put him in front of a teleprompter and pray he reads it and at least says the right things, because he is making it worse.” Her remarks come amid ongoing protests across the country over the death of Floyd, an unarmed African American man who died after he was pinned down by a white Minneapolis police officer. “We’re going to see – we’re going to see the other side of this in a couple of weeks.” She added, ” We are losing sight of so many things right now.” Bottoms urged Americans not to lose sight of the need for “change in this country as it relates to race relations in this country. “I wear this each and every day, and I pray over my children, each and every day.” In July of 2019, Bottoms spoke out forcefully against planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Atlanta, and other cities, telling CNN at the time that her city was “not complicit in what’s happening.” She dismissed the federal targeting of migrants as a means of reducing crime, as the Trump administration has often framed it, and said her office would provide legal assistance to immigrant families, in English and Spanish, and warned those communities to be vigilant ahead of the scheduled sweeps.